Thread: Whose broad stripes and bright stars?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/ ... local_util

Whose broad stripes and bright stars?
Laura Vozzella
September 30, 2007

Republican front-runners weren't the only things missing from the presidential debate stage. The American flag was AWOL, too.

The backdrop to the "All-American Presidential Forum," brought to you by Tavis Smiley and PBS, was a map of the United States, superimposed with a checkerboard of multicultural faces.

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, one of the presidential hopefuls, asked debate organizers to get Old Glory up there, too, according to Chris Cavey, first vice chairman of the state GOP.
Cavey was acting as an escort for another candidate, Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and heard Hunter's request over his earpiece about half an hour before the show began.

"Escorts were wired. I heard [in the earpiece], 'Congressman Hunter is requesting a flag on stage,'" Cavey said.

Request denied.

I tried to ask Hunter about it, but he and his spokesman were flying somewhere and could not be reached for comment. (Who does this guy think he is, a real candidate?)

Forum organizers also did not return calls seeking comment.

The buzz among some Republicans was that organizers thought the flag might "offend" some members of the audience. Cavey, while critical of the decision, chalks it up to aesthetics, not politics. Red-white-and-blue simply would have clashed with the map's yellow-to-burnt-orange hues.

"I feel it was all just Hollywood," Cavey said. "They had their idea of what the set should look like. It was very nice. It was a very, very professional-looking set. Someone had spent a lot of time and money designing it. But whoever planned it didn't have a flag. None of those producers had the authority to say, 'Oh, crap, we forgot the flag. Let's put it in the corner.' The set-builders' union would have gone on strike."

Isn't it possible that the producers just couldn't find a flag in time after Hunter raised the issue?

"They could have walked across the street to the police station to get a flag in half an hour, and I know personally that Morgan State University has a flag somewhere," Cavey said. "I thought it was absolutely inappropriate that the 'All-American Presidential Debate' couldn't even produce an American flag."[snip]

PBS is a well known TV with it's anti America views.

Since when did we start diplaying our flag only when it was color
co-ordinated with everything around it.

How pathetic and we are definitly getting to way to many people in this country with no patriotism. Just what the hell has happen to this country, and the canidates should have demanded it or turned around and walked away, see how fast they would have come up with a flag !!

It's not PC they could have "offended" the "poor" Anti-Americans crowd .