Birther Republican official hangs flag upside down for Obama's inauguration

A Republican official in Pennsylvania says that he doesn't regret hanging at least three American flags upside down to protest President Barack Obama's second inauguration because "our nation is in a horrible place."

WPXI's Julie Fine took a news crew to party headquarters in McKeesport to speak to Mon Valley Republican Party Chair Brent Kovac after the station began receiving complaints that the official signal of distress was over the line on a day that most Americans put partisanship aside.

"Sometimes people need a strong statement," Kovac explained to Fine. "The nation is in distress, and this isn't the first time this has been done, whether you agree with the sentiment or not."

Outside the committee offices, Kovac hung one upside-down flag beneath a sign supporting former nominee Mitt Romney that read, "Ambassador murdered in Libya by terrorists. Obama is running Big Bird TV ads against Romney. Vote for an adult for president..."

"Military people fight for that flag everyday," the WPXI reporter noted. "What do you say to them?"

"Some of them might be flying their flag upside down too," Kovac insisted.

"You're telling me you think somebody in the military is flying their flag upside down today?" Fine pressed.

"I didn't say that I know that," Kovac admitted. "I think I've created a little bit of dialog."

Allegheny County Republican Party Chair Jim Roddey told WPXI that he disagreed with Kovac's actions.

"We are disappointed in the outcome of the election but we would do nothing to disrespect the Office of the President of the United States," Roddey said in a statement.

In a letter posted on the Mon Valley Republican Party website prior to the Nov. 6 election, Kovac had suggested that the president may not be a U.S. citizen and conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart may have been murdered as part of a liberal conspiracy.

"[C]onveniently the most ferocious and effective conservative activists Andrew Brietbart, dies of a heart attack at 42 years old, just seven months from the Presidential election, followed by the coroner that performed his autopsy from poisoning," he wrote. "Yea.. I’m just a paranoid right winger.. however, before I became one.. I didn’t believe in coincidences, .. I definitely don’t believe in that kind of coincidence."

"As if that wasn’t cause for inquiry alone, our President hasn’t proven himself a natural-born citizen, satisfactorily to anyone yet, and is thumbing his nose at us by producing the laughable birth certificate that he came up with... the media.. gives him a total pass. While chasing down a story about what Mitt Romney was doing in high school."

He concluded: "What we’ve lost, was lost long before Barack Obama took office. He is here to finish a job that was started years ago.. but the level of disrespect and disdain for the average American that President Obama has shown is insulting and it is obvious that the powers that be are confident that they barely need to disguise their efforts to turn us into a socialist country."

Watch this video from WPIX, broadcast Jan. 21, 2013.

(h/t: Think Progress)