No, President Obama Didn't Have A Flag Removed From Ground Zero

[Amerigo Vespucci]

No, President Obama Didn't Have A Flag Removed From Ground Zero

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201105060017

May 06, 2011 12:16 pm ET by Oliver Willis

ABC News' Jake Tapper published the following Tweet yesterday, showing cranes removing a U.S. flag from the Ground Zero site with the caption, "One minute to air and they decided to take the flag down from the live shot":



Some conservative bloggers took this to mean that President Obama ordered the removal of the flag.

One problem. It isn't true. Multiple photos show that the flag was on full display when Obama arrived at Ground Zero. Tapper's tweet was posted at 6:30 pm -- hours after the President had left. In all likelihood, Tapper was saying that the flag was being removed before his live shot for ABC World News when he made his tweet.

To their credit, both Malkin and Ross have acknowledged that they got the story wrong, though Malkin erased her erroneous post rather than add a correction to the initial, inflammatory post, while Ross claimed "perhaps Tapper just confused all of us" and added, "I'm sticking by my "Marxist coup d'état" comment."

[Drunken Irishman]

1. Republicans are assholes.

[struggle4progress]

2. And I'm sticking by my "Alligator-infested re-education camps" comment