NC Gop Gets Tim Kaine's Flag Pin Horribly Wrong [UPDATED]
Credit: Twitter
July 28, 2016

Media Matters:

The Charlotte Observer called out North Carolina's Republican party after its official Twitter account tweeted that it was “shameful” for Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine (D-VA) to wear a “Honduras flag pin on his jacket but no American Flag.”

Throughout the convention, conservative media have tried to paint Democrats as unpatriotic by inaccurately accusing them of failing to displaying American flags on the stage and for not mentioning ISIS on the opening night of the convention. Right-wing media also specifically targeted Kaine's use of Spanish during his speech, mocking his accent and questioning if he was actually fluent in the language.

The July 28 Observer article noted that the North Carolina GOP inaccurately tweeted that Kaine was wearing a “Honduras flag pin on his jacket but no American flag.” However, WNYT reporter Ben Amey was quick to point out that Kaine’s pin was a “Blue Star Service pin for his son, who’s a deployed Marine.” The North Carolina GOP account replied, thanking Amey “for letting us correct our mistake,” but failed to apologize to Kaine for the error.

Because they are jerks.

And I have spent some time on right wing blogs today. Boy, are they desperate and sad.

UPDATE:

This afternoon, long after news of this story broke, NC GOP Executive Director issued this statement:

As the Executive Director of the North Carolina Republican Party, we offer our sincere and unqualified apology for the mistake made on Twitter last night regarding Gov. Kaine's lapel pin. The tweet was wrong on the facts, wrong in tone and should not have happened.

We would like to offer a sincere apology to Senator Tim Kaine, his family, and his Marine son who is honorably serving overseas.

The members of the staff that were invoked are facing severe internal sanctions and mandatory retraining.

When we learned of our mistake, we immediately took steps to rectify it. There are now procedural measures in place to make sure it does not happen again.

While I did not see or authorize the tweet, as the Director of our organization I take full responsibility for our carelessness.

Again, we are incredibly thankful for the service of Sen. Kaine’s son, and all United States military, past and present, who fight for our freedom.

We demand accountability from our elected officials and our government. Those standards apply do and should apply to us as well.

(h/t to lalameda in the comments)

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