Republicans make use of the DNCC's "trash"

The Democrats did a much better job at handling the visual aspects of their convention. Actually, the Republicans did a pretty crummy job with their visuals especially the funky green screen behind McCain's speech.

But all that will be negated with this visual that the Democrats left behind at their convention - thousands of American flags in the garbage. Hot Air has the picture. The Republicans know an opportunity when they are handed one.

John McCain’s campaign prepared to accuse Democrats Saturday of leaving behind 12,000 miniature American flags after Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech last Thursday in Denver.

Boy Scouts have arrived with 84 trash bags full of bundles of flags at the site of a McCain rally scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. local time in Colorado Springs.

The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there, and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage for the rally.

FOX News has been told a vendor at Invesco Field found the flags, which were going to be thrown out, and turned them over to the McCain campaign.

Veterans in Colorado Springs are expected to distribute the flags to the audience at the rally.

I sure hope the Republicans did a better job disposing of their flag. I hope that the delegates took them home with them. I guess the Democrats in Invesco Field weren't interested in a patriotic souvenir from Obama's speech. Ed Morrissey has a suggestion of what the Democrats might have done with all those flags instead of gifting the Republicans with this PR hit.

Didn’t anyone make arrangements for better disposal of these flags from Invesco? At the very least, they were an investment that could have been re-used at rallies in Colorado as well as the rest of the nation during the general election. Instead, they’ve handed a dramatic moment to John McCain and Sarah Palin, as well as relieved them of the cost of 12,000 such flags — as well as a full 3′x5′ flag that also wound up in the trash.

Remember when the DNCC was supposed to be the “greenest convention ever”? How they worried about the color of the food and using organic materials in their merchandise? I guess we can see where the “green” concern ends … at red, white, and blue.

Still … I hope the RNCC did a better job rescuing discarded flags at the Xcel Center.

Red State has more pictures.

UPDATE: Dave Harsanyi at the Denver Post who originally reported on this story has an update from both the guy who found the flags and the DNC.

UPDATE I: I just spoke with the person at Invesco who found the flags and he thinks both sides are exaggerating a bit. The person claims the majority of the bags with flags in them were near the trash, on a dock, and would have been thrown away. The person thinks it was probably an “oversight” by the Democrats rather than any nefarious plot against the flag. But the person doesn’t believe anyone was coming to get them: “The flags were there for a week and a day and no one came looking for them.”

One thing I know for certain: Barack Obama didn’t order anyone to throw out 12,000 American flags.

Here are the statements from the Democrats.

“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.”
– Democratic National Committee Spokeswoman Karen Finney

“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.”
– Democratic National Convention Committee