Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of those rare leaders who transcends partisanship. However, as history makes clear, progress on civil rights would have been futile if it hadn't been for Democratic Presidents, Democratic legislators, Democratic candidates, and the Democratic Party. So is that why no Republicans spoke at today's celebration of the 50th anniversary of "I Have a Dream"?
The crowd heard from John Lewis, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama — but the nation's highest-ranking elected Republicans, John Boehner and Eric Cantor, were invited but declined. (Yes, that Eric Cantor, who said he was proud to re-cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Lewis a few months back. Incredible.)
We cats can only imagine that Boehner and Cantor were sure they were going to get booed.
As for the other living former Presidents who didn't show up today, we're willing to give George H.W. Bush a pass for health reasons. But The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived? No way.
Yes, yes, we know he had stent surgery three weeks ago. We cats say, nuh-uh. Stent implantation is a minimally invasive procedure that patients recover from quickly. Most leave the hospital the next day, and are back at work within a week. No excuse.
Are we being hard on him? Maybe. But about 5,000 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqis would want us to be — if they were alive to tell us.
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