(I posted at the risk of duplication. I did every search I could think of, and still couldn't find anything on this topic. I can't be the only Kossack who's heard this, can I? Please, tell me I'm wrong - if I am, I'll delete.)
Bob Grant, the cantankerous, insane host of a wingnut call-in show on New York's WABC, raised some frightening (note: snark alert) concerns over Barack Obama's use of an American flag at an October 13th rally in Toledo, Ohio. According to our ever-vigilant Grant, Obama has apparently started altering the Stars and Strips to include the campaign's "O" emblem - all part of Obama's radical plan to put America under his evil sway.
As recounted by Media Matters, Grant warned his listeners that:
What is that flag that Obama's been standing in front of that looks like an American flag, but instead of having the field of 50 stars representing the 50 states, there's a circle?
Grant carried on about this obvious usurpation of Old Glory by Obama, questioning whether "the circle [is] the 'O' for Obama" and claiming that Obama was "not content with just having several American flags, plain old American flags with the 50 states represented by 50 stars". Grant raved on:
He has the "O" flag. And that's what that "O" is. That's what that "O" is. Just like he did with the plane he was using. He had the flag painted over, and the "O" for Obama. Now, these are symptom -- these things are symptomatic of a person who would like to be a potentate -- a dictator.
Pretty alarming stuff. Should we be second-guessing our devotion to our candidate here?
Rest easy. As Michelle Malkin pointed out (and I can't believe she's the voice of reason here), this is the scene that raised the alarm for Grant and his blustering idiot callers:
That specialized "Obamerican" flag. Yep - it's the state flag of Ohio.
I grew up in Ohio. Lived there until I was 29, then moved to California. I'm a product of the Ohio public schools, all the way up through law school. We had a unit on Ohio history in our second-grade social studies class. I don't remember anything about our state flag being rooted in a separatist movement. Did Bob and his rightwing nutbag callers maybe cover this in home-school?