Obama Flag (with Obama’s Portrait Replacing the Blue Field of Stars) Replaces American Flag

An American flag with President Obama's image in place of the stars flew over a Florida county's Democrat headquarters long enough to enrage local veterans who called the altered banner "a disgrace."

Lake County Democratic Party officials took down the flag, which flew just below a standard Old Glory on the flagpole outside headquarters in Tavares following complaints by local veterans. But merely taking it down wasn't enough for several local veterans, who said they fought for the flag Betsy Ross made famous, not one with a politician on it. "It's absolutely disrespectful," Jim Bradford, a 71-year-old veteran who participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion said. "It's totally ridiculous. To put somebody's picture there, to me, it's a disgrace to do that." Bradford, an organizer with the Veterans Memorial at Fountain Park in Leesburg, Florida, snapped photos of the flag and distributed them to fellow veterans and friends. By late afternoon, he and several other veterans delivered a copy of the federal flag code to Nancy Hurlbert, chairwoman of the Lake County Democratic Party.

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"We read that to her, but she would not accept that," Bradford said. "The discussion finally got a little bit heated." The flag, which had been flying for several months without complaint and is available online for $12.95, was later removed by Hurlbert. Bradford said Hurlbert apologized for the incident, but did not offer any promises that it wouldn't fly again.

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