Where’s Zinke? The Interior secretary’s special flag offers clues

At the Interior Department’s headquarters in downtown Washington, Secretary Ryan Zinke has revived an arcane military ritual that no one can remember ever happening in the federal government. A security staffer takes the elevator to the seventh floor, climbs the stairs to the roof and hoists a special secretarial flag whenever Zinke enters the building. When the secretary goes home for the day or travels, the flag — a blue banner emblazoned with the agency’s bison seal flanked by seven white stars representing the Interior bureaus — comes down. In Zinke’s absence, the ritual is repeated to raise an equally obscure flag for Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt. Zinke, a Stetson-wearing former Montana congressman who has cultivated an image as a rugged outdoorsman, has come under a harsh spotlight in recent weeks for behavior criticized as extravagant for a public official. The agency’s inspector general opened an investigation after he ran up bills for travel on chartered jets and mixed business with political appearances, sometimes accompanied by his wife, Lola. It’s one of five probes underway of Cabinet secretaries’ travel. He has commissioned commemorative coins with his name on them to give to staff and visitors, but the cost to taxpayers is unclear. Zinke’s predecessors and some other Cabinet secretaries have coins bearing agency seals, but not personalized ones. The flag ritual is unique in President Trump’s administration. Thonumente White House does not raise the presidential flag when Trump alights at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. There is no Defense secretary’s flag atop the Pentagon. Retired Army Col. Steven Warren, who ran the Pentagon’s press operation before retiring this year, could not recall the place in Washington hierarchy represented by the raising of a federal official’s personal flag. “Is he trying to send a message?” Warren wondered. “Is he big on pomp and circumstance, or is this a case of ‘Look at me?’ ”...more

Zinke's real problem with flags is that in the battle with enviros over National Monuments, the Secretary hoisted the white flag of surrender. With respect to the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, that puts him in the same camp with Hillary's campaign manager, John Podesta, who pushed the designation through the Obama White House.

And yes, that's the same John Podesta who in July of this year called the President a "whack job". What's whacky to me is that Zinke is endorsing Podesta's work and marching arm-in-arm with New Mexico's two Democrat senators, while opposing the recommendations of Republican Congressman Steve Pearce.