The Democratic National Convention has already seen its fair share of chaos, and the North Carolina Republican Twitter account tried to add to it. In a since deleted tweet, the North Carolina GOP mocked Vice Presidential candidate and Senator, Tim Kaine, as “shameful” for wearing a Honduras flag pin but no United States flag pin while addressing the Democratic National Convention.
The problem: Kaine was not wearing a flag pin for Honduras.
Kaine was wearing a Blue Star Service Pin, which the Department of Defense recognizes as a symbol for families of members of the armed forces. Kaine’s son Nathaniel serves in the United States Marine Corps.
Ben Amey of WNYT grabbed a screen capture of the offending tweet:
Here's a screenshot of that @NCGOP tweet about @timkaine, since they deleted it. #DemsInPhilly pic.twitter.com/LbAywwnnob
— Ben (@BAMNY5) July 28, 2016
For the record, here is an image of the Blue Star Service flag, which Tim Kaine was wearing:
And here’s an image of the flag of Honduras:
They’re pretty different.
The North Carolina GOP thanked Amey for the correction and deleted the tweet. They have since apologized to Tim Kaine, his family, and his son in a post on Facebook:
“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.”
At least they apologized, but it still seems ridiculous that the offending tweet went out in the first place. A quick Google search is all it takes to find out that information. Most likely the mishap came from the fact that Tim Kaine served as a missionary in Honduras during the early 1980s. It seems ignorance runs in the GOP family.
Watch Tim Kaine accept his nomination as running mate to Hillary Clinton:
Featured Image Via Hillary Clinton’s Facebook Page.
