The North Carolina GOP had to apologize because an Albany reporter knew more than it did about the U.S. military.
WNYT reporter Ben Amey fact checked the NC GOP after it tweeted out a message about Democratic VP candidate Tim Kaine saying “@timkaine wears a Honduras flag pin on his jacket but no American flag. Shameful.”
Amey knew Kaine wasn’t wearing the Honduras flag. He was wearing a Department of Defense Blue Star pin for families with sons or daughters serving during a time of armed conflict.
Kaine’s son is a U.S. Marine serving in eastern Europe.
That's a Blue Star Service pin for his son, who's a deployed Marine. https://t.co/aV0sqg8VdV https://t.co/73FJddcAVd
— Ben Amey (@BenAmeyTV) July 28, 2016
The NCGOP saw the correction and apologized.
@BenAmeyTV We appreciate you letting us know. Thanks for letting us correct our mistake.
— NCGOP (@NCGOP) July 28, 2016
The executive director of the NCGOP Dallas Woodhouse also apologized 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.
When we learned of our mistake, we immediately took steps to rectify it. There are now procedural measures in place to make sure it does not happen again.
While I did not see or authorize the tweet, as the Director of our organization I take full responsibility for our carelessness.
Again, we are incredibly thankful for the service of Sen. Kaine’s son, and all United States military, past and present, who fight for our freedom.
We demand accountability from our elected officials and our government. Those standards apply do and should apply to us as well.