The president tomorrow will once again address the issue of race in American life in a speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Administration officials, however, bristled at suggestions that he make even a symbolic trip to the predominantly black city of Detroit, which last month filed for bankruptcy.
“There’s not a goddam [thing] we can do right now to help them,” an Obama aide told Politico’s Glenn Thrush.
In tomorrow’s speech, the president will look to link King’s vision with his own achievements, including the passage of Obamacare. In a radio interview this morning, President Obama argued that King would have been in favor of the law. “Oh he’d like that,” Obama said. “Well, because he understood that health care, health security is not a privilege, it’s something in a county as wealthy as ours, everybody should have access to.”