Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Ryan Zinke succumbed to a bout of Benghazi Fever last night at the Americans for Prosperity sponsored Kalispell debate for Republican candidates for the U.S. House, grudging admitting he would impeach President Obama. Virginia based Americans for Prosperity is bankrolled by the Libertarian Koch brothers. Here’s Jim Mann’s account in the Daily InterLake:
Turiano asked Zinke whether he would support impeaching President Barack Obama because of the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, or for other scandals.
Zinke, a former Navy SEAL who knew two of the four Americans who died at Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, said he believes that if Republicans win Congress they can put Obama and his agenda “on the run,” concluding vaguely that he hoped after the fall elections there would be “enough votes” in the Senate.
Pressed by Turiano for a specific answer about impeachment, Zinke said yes he would support it.
I suspect that if Zinke wins the primary, he’ll clarify that statement with so many caveats it’s reduced to a hypothetical response to a hypothetical statement without much connection to the real world.
But I wish Zinke had said something to the effect of:
Mr. Turiano, your racist and xenophobic predilections are well known. You’d love dancing in a dirty sheet while burning a cross on the White House lawn. The only thing I will impeach at this debate is your credibility, and doing that is easier than shotgunning snakes in a basket.
That would have been the honorable response to Turiano. Instead, in what was not one of his finer moments, Zinke pandered to the worst instincts of the tea party.