Confederate flag to fly Sunday in Missouri

Missouri governor Matt Blunt has ordered the Confederate flag to fly Sunday at the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville, where an afternoon graveside service is planned to mark Confederate Memorial Day.

You would think that this would be an appropriate time and place to fly the flag--over the graves of the soldiers who fought beneath it. The NAACP, however, doesn't even want the Confederate flag in Confederate cemeteries. The Missouri branch will be "asking for drastic measures from our national office."

Confederate flags had flown daily at the Higginsville site and the Fort Davidson State Historic Site in Pilot Knob until they were ordered down in January 2003 by Democratic Gov. Bob Holden's administration shortly after a comment by then-Rep. Dick Gephardt of St. Louis - who was running for the Democratic nomination for president at the time - that the Confederate flag should no longer fly "anytime, anywhere".