Recycling

Readers may remember my post in which I described the efforts of the Democrats to make Denver a “green” convention. They deployed an army (or a regiment, at least) of 900 volunteers to “help” delegates sort their recyclables. No, really, they did. But they left it up to the Republicans to do the heavy duty recycling. It seems the Democrats took thousands upon thousands - as many as 12,000 - American flags, put them into trash bags and threw them into dumpsters.

This morning, Republicans tell me that a worker at Invesco Field in Denver saved thousands of unused flags from the Democratic National Convention that were headed for the garbage. Guerrilla campaigning. They will use these flags at their own event today in Colorado Springs with John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Before McCain speaks today, veterans will haul these garbage bags filled with flags out onto the stage — with dramatic effect, no doubt — and tell the story.

“What you see in the picture I sent you is less than half of total flags,” a Republican official emailed. “We estimate the total number to be around 12,000 small flags and one full size 3×5 flag.”

I’m not sure what the DNC was supposed to do with unused hand-flags, frankly. But the Republicans are obviously questioning someone’s patriotism here.

Contrary to that little snark at the end, it is quite clear what they could have done with the unwanted flags. They could have - no - should have - given them to the local American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars to reuse and/or dispose of properly. Or they could have donated them to the nearest National Cemetery.

Just about anything but throw them into the trash to be hauled away to a landfill.

What this shows is what the Democrats think the flag is: just something to use as window dressing, another prop to be discarded just like Obama’s fake Greek Temple. It also shows that the people shown waving those flags on camera had no use for them after the photo-op. They didn’t even want them as souvenirs.

Absolutely brilliant way to damage yourselves, Democrats. The funny thing is, even a lot of your party members will not be happy about this. This was bone-deep stupid. You deserve the bashing you are already getting.

Frankly, if the Republicans are smart, they will ship those flags to every single campaign event for the next two months and tell the story to every audience. Then donate them as suggested above.

UPDATE: The link has updated to include the Democrat’s response. As the reporter points out, the original finder of the flags thinks both the Republican take on the events and Democratic response are a bit too much. The fact is that the flags were not taken care of and would have been thrown away had the finder of them not intervened. A mistake, a dropped detail, by the Dems? Maybe. Maybe. But the excuses do not negate the fact that the flags were not taken care of properly. That is a detail that should not have been overlooked. Period. This is literally a phone call to take care of. I’m not really impressed by the Democrat’s war room response on this. Have the Republicans jumped on this as an issue? Yup. Rightfully so. The Democrats gave them the club they are getting beaten with.