My guess is that his staff hastily threw the press conference together, and being the good Marxists they are, completely forgot about the flag.
Yes, that's Occam's Razor, for sure. It's probably the most likely explanation, after all. My interest was in the hypothetical reason if the lame-brain omission had been intentional.
You illustrate an excellent point, however. It takes conscious effort, unfortunately, not to give this cadre too much credit. I know better and shouldn't encourage the sort of mistaken thinking that can't conceive of the truth. Becoming president of the U.S. can't be that difficult, obviously. It's clearly easier than winning American Idol.