26 Comments Add your own

• 1. Menlo Bob  |  August 10th, 2008 at 10:48 am

  I don’t get it. The video shows President Bush holding a small flag. And the point is……………

• 2. Pat Cunningham  |  August 10th, 2008 at 11:07 am

  Bob: Bush isn’t merely “holding” a flag. The video shows him repeatedly tapping the flag against his inner thigh near his crotch. All I’m saying is that the folks at Fox News probably would have a fit if Obama did something like this. The fact that Bush means no disrespect to the flag is beside the point. Neither has Obama ever meant disrespect to the flag, but he’s been accused of it by every superpatriot in America.

• 3. Mike Carroll  |  August 10th, 2008 at 11:41 am

  You are reaching Pat.

• 4. Pat Cunningham  |  August 10th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

  Sure, I’m reaching, but not any more than those who have impugned Obama’s patriotism have reached. The silliness is more apparent when the shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it? Remember all that nonsense about whether Obama had his hand over his heart during a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the playing of the National Anthem or whatever it was? Was that reaching? Of course, it was. But some people thought it was a very big deal and that it showed Obama to be unfit for high office.

  Let’s be clear about this: I haven’t accused Bush of doing anything improper. I’ve merely asked how Fox News and others of its ilk would treat the matter if it was Obama with the little flag. I think we all know the answer to that. Remember the “terrorist fist jab”?

• 5. kaus  |  August 10th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

  Silliness? He got himself into this mess on his own.

  Obama by his own account, doesn’t even know how many stars are on the flag (50, not 57)…

• 6. George Bush  |  August 10th, 2008 at 1:04 pm

  Another liberal media guy.

  Find a life…

• 7. Jason C  |  August 10th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

  To be fair, I think the President’s tapping the flag against his knee, not his crotch. I guess that’s his way of showing that he’s a “knee slappin’ ol’e country boy”.

  Or maybe he’s disrespecting the flag on purpose, to fool the chicoms as to his loyalties… Maybe he read it in Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, right? Yeah, that’s the ticket…

  Maybe the flag should have 57 stars, “Heinz 57″ represents america almost as well these days.

• 8. Pat Cunningham  |  August 10th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

  Kaus: That stars-on-the-flag story is bogus. Obama was referring to 57 primaries and caucuses and mistakenly said 57 states. You know, the kind of slip of the tongue John McCain makes every time he opens his mouth, even when he doesn’t have Lieberman and Graham around to correct him. This brings to mind the old expression about the guy who says a certain somebody has forgotten more than a certain somebody else will ever know. In this case, Obama knows more than McCain has forgotten, which is quite a bit.

• 9. Pat Cunningham  |  August 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

  Bush is so stupid he even screws up the familiar expresssion “Get a life.” In comment No. 6, he says: “Find a life.” One more Bushism to add to the list of thousands. I swear, the man couldn’t spell “cat” if you gave him the “c” and the “a.” Little wonder that he was a legacy admission at Yale.

• 10. kaus  |  August 10th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

  Bush STILL had better GPA than Kerry…..

• 11. kaus  |  August 10th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

  AND…Barry did say 57 states….perhaps it was fatigue, but the same could be said of Dan Quayle saying “potatoe”. He said it….you can’t deny it.

• 12. Ross Calloway  |  August 10th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

  Pat, there was never any question about ‘whether’ Barack put his hand over his heart. He didn’t.

  Now, if Bush was doing this to the tune of our national anthem, you would have a point. But it wasn’t.

  Barack is consistent, however. On the tail of his 747 jet, he replaced an American flag, found somewhere on most airliners, with his campaign symbol. He did not move the flag somewhere else. He replaced it.

  Now, that doesn’t make Barack unpatriotic, it makes him stupid.

• 13. Menlo Bob  |  August 10th, 2008 at 10:51 pm

  Obama took the flag off the tail of the plane and put it on the body. No point in spreading false statements.

• 14. Ross Calloway  |  August 11th, 2008 at 12:44 am

  MB, not according to these pics. Before you accuse anyone of spreading false statements, you better show some proof to justify your own.

  http://rosscalloway.com/lunchcounter/news-and-toons/

• 15. redrover  |  August 11th, 2008 at 9:11 am

  What Bush did with his tiny, made-in-China US flag was not the only act of flag desecration that he committed that day.

  By appearing at the opening of Beijing Olympics, he desecrated everything our flag supposedly stands for — “liberty and justice for all” — by participating in a propaganda event created by a brutal totalitarian regime that was designed to legitimize and glorify its decades of crimes against the many peoples of China.

  Please remember what the Chinese Communist party really stands for and how it feels about the USA. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9-11, this same Beijing government produced books, films and video games that glorified those attacks as a humbling blow against an arrogant nation.

  SEE:
  Beijing produces videos glorifying terrorist attacks on ‘arrogant’ US
  By Damien McElroy
  3 Nov 2001
  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1361461/Beijing-produces-videos-glorifying-terrorist-attacks-on-‘arrogant’-US.html

  I could not watch those opening ceremonies. Their Nazi-like appearance sickened and angered me. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is currently presenting an exhibition on the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Take a look at the exhibit online and see how disturbingly similar the Beijing Olympics is to that sordid event:
  http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/detail.php

  Finally, by deciding to attend the Beijing Olympics, Bush insulted every last veteran who participated in the Korean and Vietnam wars and who fought and, in over 100,000 cases, died believing that it was America’s duty to defeat or at least contain the communist tyranny that Bush chose to applaud with his tiny flag.

• 16. hokumboy  |  August 11th, 2008 at 9:41 am

  Ross,
  show us a full picture of the entire side of the plane. Not just the selected parts with no flag on it.

• 17. Milton Waddams  |  August 11th, 2008 at 10:14 am

  From Snopes…

  Barack Obama’s Campaign Plane

  Interestingly, there is a picture of John McCain’s plane and there isn’t a flag to be found — where’s the fake outrage? Oh that’s right, it’s just McCain being a “maverick”.

• 18. Pat Cunningham  |  August 11th, 2008 at 10:33 am

  Milton beat me to the punch. The item from Snopes shows that Obama’s plane bears an American flag on its side near the serial numbers (or whatever they are). The photo of McCain’s plane shows no flag whatever. But then, who the hell cares? I’ll tell you who: Only pseudo-patriots who regard the flag with religious fervor and consider it more important than the U.S. Constitution. You see, the flag is about emotion, and the Constitution is about ideas and principles. That’s too much thinking for some people to handle. They like to keep their patriotism simple. The Constitution is for eggheads and lawyers and other wimps. Real men don’t like that complicated stuff. They think, for instance, that wars are fought to defend flags — not to defend constitutional principles. They’re simpletons.

• 19. Ross Calloway  |  August 11th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

  Thanks Milton & Pat, I stand corrected.

  According to picture that snopes is showing, the flag beside the plane’s serial number remained intact. I couldn’t find a picture of the entire side of the plane.

  Snopes verified everything I said in my original post on this subject, didn’t they?

• 20. Ross Calloway  |  August 11th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

  MB, snopes did not say that Obama moved the flag to the side of the plane. You said that.

  ‘No point in spreading false statements.’

• 21. Ross Calloway  |  August 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

  fwiw, the nationality and registration numbers are an faa requirement.

  14 CFR Part 45
  Identification and Registration Markings

  Subpart C–Nationality and Registration Marks

  Sec. 45.21 General.

  (a) Except as provided in Sec. 45.22, no person may operate a U.S.-
  registered aircraft unless that aircraft displays nationality and
  registration marks in accordance with the requirements of this section
  and Secs. 45.23 through 45.33.

  http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=0fc50bc662e21a05aa9c8848b4b43bd6&rgn=div5&view=text&node=14:1.0.1.3.22&idno=14#PartTop

• 22. Craig Knauss  |  August 11th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

  I’m glad to see Ross is so up to date with airplane requirements. And with repeating that ridiculous right-wing tripe from some jackass named Bill Dupray. First, Ross called a “757″ a “747″. Not even close. Obama’s plane is two-engined. 747s have four and are about twice as big. Second, virutally no U.S. air carrier has a flag on its tails. United has the “U”, American has the “A-A”, Continental has the globe, Delta has the triangle, etc. But no flag. And if anyone looks at the pictures from the 2007 Air Fest, http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?aircraft_genericsearch=&airlinesearch=&countrysearch=-+Rockford+-+Chicago%2FRockford+Int.+%28RFD+%2F+KRFD%29&specialsearch=&daterange=&keywords=&range=&sort_order=&page_limit=15&thumbnails=&calccount=1295853&truecount=false&engine_version=6.0 , they won’t see any flags on the tails of the U.S. Air Force “Thunderbirds” aerobatics team planes. How unpatriotic can those Air Force pilots get, huh? Anyway, it’s just another example of some numbnuts trying to create an issue where none exists.

• 23. Ross Calloway  |  August 11th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

  Hey Craig, I’m not claiming to be an expert on plane types. If I was wrong on that point, I’ll take it.

  But there are all kinds of exceptions to the laws regarding the display of nationality and registration. Maybe you ought to check it out before commenting next time. Aircraft used for air shows and exhibition aircraft are among them. As are, I believe, commercial carriers.

  Calling me names shows your character, which I expected to see sooner or later. But it doesn’t change any facts.

  The plane that the Obama campaign is using is required to display the nationality and the registration numbers exactly where they are. End of story.

  Glad I could help.

• 24. Craig Knauss  |  August 11th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

  I referred to that Bill Dupray character as a jackass because he was trying to create a controversy where none existed. And it had nothing to do with law. He claimed Obama was “despicable” because he didn’t have a flag on his plane’s tail. And that he was “ashamed of his country”. My comment was that commercial carriers and Air Force jets also do not have flags on their tails. Does that make them “despicable” also? Does that mean that they are “ashamed of their country”? And Obama does not own the plane. It’s leased.

  “Calling me names shows your character, which I expected to see sooner or later. ” I didn’t call you names, whether you expected it or not. Read it again. But Dupray’s message was right-wing tripe. If Dupray wants to attack Obama, he should pick an actual issue not his plane’s tail, his type of shoes, his house color or other superfluous BS.

• 25. Ross Calloway  |  August 11th, 2008 at 6:43 pm

  OK fine. So the ‘numbnuts’ was meant for him and not me. My mistake.

  I don’t know this Bill Dupray nor whatever ‘right-wing tripe’ he may have said. All I know is that his name does not appear in this thread.

  Enough of this already. Supper is ready.

• 26. redrover  |  August 12th, 2008 at 9:56 am

  Sorry that my link did not work in the first posting. Here it is again, complete, I hope.

  Beijing produces videos glorifying terrorist attacks on ‘arrogant’ US
  By Damien McElroy
  3 Nov 2001

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