Here’s a head-scratching quote from today’s Politico piece on how Republicans struggle to deal with conspiracy theorists who don’t think Barack Obama is a legitimate president.

“Twenty-five percent of my people believe the Pentagon and Rumsfeld were responsible for taking the twin towers down,” said Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat who represents a conservative Republican district in Minnesota. “That’s why I don’t do town meetings.”

Asked about a problem in the Republican base, Peterson chooses to … bash liberals in his own district, which gave Obama a not-exactly-fringey 47 percent of the vote.