The McCain campaign has been gleefully deriding the Obama campaign for reputedly throwing away tens of thousands of small American flags from their convention. Fox News was on the scene to make sure this trip got wide circulation
“The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there,” Fox News reported, “and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage” for a rally in Colorado Springs, Col.
As it turns out, what really happened is that the Dems picked up all the flags that were left after the convention, bagged them up and put them aside to be shipped to another Democratic get-together where they were to be reused.
Unfortunately, some overly-enthusiastic McCain supporters grabbed a bag of the flags and stole them. They turned them over to the McCain campaign, telling them the lie that the Dems were going to throw them away. Jumping on this immediately, the McCain campaign proceeded to hand out the stolen flags in an effort to make political hay with it.
The Dems’ response
“American flags were proudly waved by the 75,000 people who joined Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention. John McCain should applaud that, but instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism. On the same day he agrees to join Barack Obama at Ground Zero on September 11, John McCain attacks the patriotism of Obama supporters who so proudly waved the American flag at our historic event in Denver just days ago.”
Also:
“Stories circulating about flags at the Democratic National Convention are false. We distributed more than 125,000 American made flags at the Convention – the flags removed from Invesco field were intended for other events and taken without permission. It’s disappointing that someone would take American flags without authorization and then falsely describe how they were being used. We have the utmost respect for the American flag, and it’s sad to see them being used for a cheap political stunt.”
As Josh Marshall at the Talking Points Memo points out, the reporter from Fox that “broke the story”, is also the same guy who just made shit up about Kerry and reported it as fact four years ago, forcing Fox to retract the reports and apologize.
No shame for these people, it appears, which, of course, surprises … uh … nobody?
I’m just sayin’…
