tmedlin's blog

mccain camp "rescues" discarded flags from obama rally

 abuse

Democrats are not caring for their Stars and Stripes. At least that’s the message out of John McCain’s campaign.

McCain supporters, claiming they rescued 12,000 miniature American flags from the site of Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech last Thursday, redistributed the orphan flags to audience members ahead of a McCain rally in Colorado Springs on Saturday.

The move was an overt swipe at Obama from a campaign whose motto has been “country first.” But Democratic convention organizers claimed the flags were not going to be discarded — but instead were snatched from the site of Obama’s historic address to carry out a “cheap political stunt.”

McCain supporters said the flags were discovered by a vendor at Denver’s Invesco Field after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention. The vendor supposedly found trash bags full of flags in and near garbage bins, and turned them over to the McCain campaign.

Boy Scouts were sorting through 84 bags of flags in Colorado on Saturday, before a McCain supporter had veterans distribute them to the audience.

“We want to find good homes for these flags,” radio host Dan Caplis said at the rally, adding that whatever flags remained would be placed at memorials throughout Colorado.

Audience members, who booed when Caplis announced that the flags were left in Denver, waved the flags and chanted “U.S.A” before McCain arrived at the rally with his running mate, Sarah Palin.

Damon Jones, spokesman for the Democratic National Convention Committee, released a statement saying McCain should applaud the fact that thousands of American flags were “proudly waved” at their convention.

“But instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play out a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism,” he said.

Obama has faced attacks on his patriotism since the beginning of the Democratic primary race and has set up a Web site specifically designed to fight such charges.

The McCain campaign has denied questioning Obama’s patriotism, and even released a statement Friday calling Obama’s most recent comments on the matter “hysterical.”

Obama said Friday that Republicans are trying to make the election a personality contest, and that “what they’re really saying is ‘we’re going to try to scare people about Barack. So we’re going to say that you know, ‘Maybe he’s got Muslim connections or we’re going to say that, you know, he hangs out with radicals or he’s not patriotic.’”

U.S. Code says the proper method for disposing of an American flag is actually burning, provided it is “no longer a fitting emblem for display.”

The United States Flag Store, which sells full-sized and miniature flags, says on its Web site that flags can also be put in the trash, when they are “worn, damaged or tattered beyond repair.”

FOX News’ Carl Cameron and Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.