Apparently, upright citizens are outraged that the Obama 2012 website is selling prints of a stylized American flag with the Obama campaign symbol in the spot where the stars would traditionally be found on an actual flag.

A Facebook friend notified me of this inane non-story when he expressed his completely non-partisan outrage at this criminal desecration of the flag (see above). Apparently my Facebook friend doesn’t understand the difference between a representation of a thing and the thing itself; he pointed me to the U.S. Flag Code in case I wasn’t clear about how to properly care for and display a flag (and, of course, that one should never cover up or place anything on it).

The fact that a drawing is not a flag seems entirely lost on him (and, now, a gaggle of his other conservative Facebook friends, who have weighed in). They also believe, it seems, that if I drew a sketch of the Mona Lisa, that sketch would be the Mona Lisa; if I tore up my sketch, I would be destroying the Mona Lisa.

Of course, even if this was an actual flag — which it most obviously is not — there’s nothing inherently wrong with representing the American flag in a way that these people find objectionable … and there are Supreme Court cases to that effect.

The best part about the story on the Fox News website is that the commenters — who are all outraged beyond belief about this print, because it desecrates the flag — know that it’s perfectly legal to burn an actual American flag; the very first comments say: “Now this is a flag I’m happy to burn” (This comment has 769 Likes); “I’ll start the fire!” (294 Likes); “Let me know when you start the fire and I will be there. This is an outrage and disgusting” (264 Likes).

“Partisan squabbles aside,” indeed.