The debate over flying the Confederate flag in South Carolina state capitol is back. Actually, the debate never really stopped, it just died down after the flag was moved from the capitol dome in 2000 to a memorial in front of the statehouse.

The issue bedeviled John McCain in 2000 after he initially said flying the flag was wrong, only to adopt the "states' rights" view during a visit to SC days later -- a dodge McCain now says was an "act of cowardice" and his biggest regret of the race.

Last week Rudy Giuliani went the same route when asked about the issue at an appearance in Alabama:

"One of the great beauties of the kind of government we have, which is a national/federal government, is that we can make - on a broad range of issues - we can make different decisions in different parts of the country," Mr. Giuliani said. "We have different sensitivities, and at different times we are going to come to different decisions, and I think that is best left up to the states."

We'll see how that position works out for Giuliani over time, because unless the South Carolina legislature deals with the issue in the next few months it will almost certainly hang around through next January.

That's my segue to this piece ("Take a good look at that flag: Is that who we are?") by Brad Warthen, editorial page editor of The State, who makes another plea to get the Confederate flag removed from the South Carolina capitol grounds, but says it won't happen unless a majority rises up to silence the two extremes:

The extremes did such a great job of hijacking this issue, it's like they got together and worked it out ahead of time between them. The rest of us are trapped in this comedy of the absurd, with the entire country laughing at us. (Have you ever heard of anything more pathetic than the city of Columbia spending $15,000 in a ridiculously doomed effort to get people covering the presidential primaries here to ignore the flag? We make ourselves into a freak show, and we think they're going to ignore it? Come on!)

Mark this: The flag will never come down in reaction to a national interest group that promotes the advancement of a segment of society defined by skin color -- any skin color. That just won't happen. Nor should it. South Carolina has to decide to do this thing itself because it wants to, because it has grown to the point that it can put such things behind it. Otherwise, nothing is accomplished.

The majority of South Carolinians are just too polite to tell the two conspiring sides in this, Shut Up and stop holding us hostage!

On the same page today is another view ("Remembering all who fought") from Joseph P. Riley, the Mayor of Charleston, who suggest a compromise:

This February, on a spring-like winter day, I was visiting the State House as a part of a Municipal Association meeting. As I left the State House, my Blackberry alerted me to a series of e-mails, so I looked for a bench in the beautiful park space outside the state Capitol to respond to the messages. I found a bench overlooking the beautiful green rectangle on the north side of the Capitol overlooking the Confederate Monument.

After finishing my work, I started thinking about this public space and an idea that has been around a while but whose time has come. What made me think of it on this day was a recent death of a South Carolina soldier in Iraq.

I thought how wonderful it would have been to look at an American flag honoring his life of service and all those who have fought and died in Iraq, as well as in all the other wars in which American soldiers have given their last full measure of devotion. By my count, if there was a flag representing the government for each war that South Carolinians have fought in, there would be 11 in addition to the Confederate flag.

What a beautiful sight this new monument would be in front of our state Capitol. Even more important, what a wonderful unifying and hallowed place this would become, a place where every South Carolinian who fought and died for our state and our country would be remembered forever.

Again, I don't know how plausible a compromise like this might be, but I'm sure the candidates running for president -- especially on the Republican side -- would be thankful to have one less thorny issue to navigate this year.