What the governor has needed is an endorsement -- someone to wave the flag for him, so to speak. He finally got a good one late last week via e-mail.

The boys of Company H, 121st Infantry (Airborne) have been totin' the new flag all over Iraq. They're part of the 221st Military Intelligence Battalion out of Fort Gillem. (See photo at right.)

We always did think that dressmakers got shortchanged in the history books

If you think the Confederacy and history are done when it comes to politics, think again:

-- In South Carolina, the Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to block a federal effort, being ushered through Congress by U.S. Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings and U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, to highlight Beaufort County as the birthplace of Reconstruction with a series of parks.

Those of you steeped in Southern history will recognize this as the period in which Scarlett had to wear a set of drapes to town.

"If the National Park Service wants to honor blacks being free from slavery and blacks getting the right to vote, that's fine," said Michael Givens, first lieutenant of the state division of the SCV told the State newspaper in Columbia. "Just don't do it under the pretenses of Reconstruction." They object to any effort to cast that era of federal occupation in a favorable light.

-- In Mississippi, Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, a Democrat turned Republican, kept her mouth shut in 2001 during that state's referendum on their flag. When asked for her opinion in 2001, her press release stated: "Just like every other Mississippi citizen, after prayerful consideration, I will express my personal opinion in the voting booth."

Now in a re-election contest with Democratic state Sen. Barbara Blackmon, who is black, Tuck says that meant she was agin it. It's obvious, she said.

"I mean, actions are very clear. I did not stand with them," she said. "When I didn't stand with [other Democrats], that was certainly indicative of the fact that I wanted to keep the flag the way it was."

Launching herself from (Some Major) International Airport in Atlanta, Shirley heads South

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin was to have hopped a red-eye to Buenos Aires, Argentina, over the weekend. No, she wasn't fleeing her sewer problems, or side-stepping the Maynard Jackson debate.

She's part of an effort to lobby South America for their support in putting a North American trade office in Atlanta. She's due back Wednesday, on another red-eye.

Trolling for Democratic women in highly Republican Cobb County