Today, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir excoriated Sarah Palin for her use of the American flag on her One Nation tour bus:

The use of the flag for advertising, among other purposes, is indeed against federal law, known as the Flag Code, but Bashir plays it as if Palin is going to be brought up on charges. Anyone who spends a minute on the Google knows that she won’t, of course. The Supreme Court has ruled, a couple times, that flag desecration is protected speech. I guess plastering a flag on a bus isn’t desecration, per se, but the guideline falls under the same principle: that they flag should just be left alone and respected.

Constitutional amendments against flag burning are floated every now and then, but always fail. I think even most legislators think of those proposals as more symbolic than anything else.

The prohibitions against printing flags on different surfaces are kind of like the jay-walking of symbol laws; they’re illegal, but nobody follows them. And like jay-walking, nobody even scolds you for it.