One can understand why U.S. Rep. Dave Taylor, R-2nd Dist. (southwestern Ohio, near Cincinnati), would want to distance himself from the appearance of an altered U.S. flag that appeared in the background — tacked onto a bulletin board behind a staffer — during a video call last week.

But he has gone from describing the appearance of a flag that had a swastika tied into the red lines of the traditional U.S. flag as “vandalism,” to saying this is actually part of an effort in which he claims “numerous Republican offices” were “targeted” by a person who was allegedly handing out the altered flags.

“After a full-scale internal investigation, I am confident that no employee of this office would knowingly display such a despicable image, and the flag in question was taken down immediately upon the discovery of the obscured symbol it bore,” Taylor said.

Either he’s being disingenuous or Taylor and his staffers do not give the attention to detail that should be given in an office that bears so much responsibility to Ohioans.

The swastika in the middle of the altered flag was visible to someone on a video call who could see it glaring from the background behind the staffer in question. Yet Taylor is claiming the symbol was “obscured,” and the alteration left it “indistinguishable” from a U.S. flag.

(By the way, Taylor’s Congressional website includes a link on the homepage that says “Flags:

If you would like to order a U.S. flag from our office, please use the flag order form to calculate the price and shipping costs.” If he and his staffers can’t tell the difference between the real flag and one with a swastika smack in the middle of it, one has to wonder how many orders he’s going to get.)

Further, if the altered flags were, as Taylor claims, handed out by a person who was “targeting” certain offices, it is worth mentioning that at the very least no one else appears to have been caught having actually displayed the thing.

Taylor has said “The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms,” though as of this writing he has not answered questions from multiple media organizations regarding the status of the employee who had it displayed.

At least he understands his voters would not tolerate any less than a condemnation of what that symbol represents. What Taylor must also understand is that voters are smart enough to know he has showed them he is either not giving them an accurate picture of how the altered flag ended up visible in his offices or he and his staffers are so incompetent and inattentive that it must make them wonder how well he is representing them in Washington, D.C.

Either way, one suspects Taylor and the unnamed staffer are now the inspiration for a new rule popping up in offices all over the nation’s capital: Don’t take anything from strangers. And if you do, for goodness sake, get written approval in triplicate before it becomes visible to the public.