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Kid Rock steals all of Bon Jovi's bits

Disrespect for the flag is an old Easterbrook favorite -- he employed a similar critique in a TMQ column from 2002 when Richie Sambora played during a halftime show with a flag wrapped around his waist:

Now maybe somewhere in Richie Sambora's fuzzy cranial cavity the idea of wearing an American flag seemed like a 9/11 gesture. Or maybe it seemed like a way to get attention. Or maybe Richie Sambora was trying to tell us he thinks the American flag can kiss his butt. At any rate, this was a huge violation of flag protocol, and TMQ was distressed that the ESPN announcers said nothing, gushing about Bon Jovi while pretending the flag-on-the-butt wasn't happening.

There's a good deal more about the American Flag Code and whether it had been superceded by a local code in New Jersey (where the game was played).

Easterbrook employs the tone he usually reserves for when he thinks he's educating, so he at least would seem to think that few people care about these incidents because few people know the rules. If asked to generalize broadly, I'd probably agree, and further theorize that many people would think that differences in intent would justify wearing the flag like a smock, Kid Rock-style, but not burning it (even though that difference in intent is part of what protects the latter as speech). On the other hand, my parents -- who for many purposes can be considered ex-Hippies -- taught me not to disrespect the flag by letting it touch the ground, so who knows what people think.