When President Bush went to Atlanta to lay a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King Jr., on the 75th anniversary of his birth, he was greeted by protesters shouting, "Bush, go home" and "Peace, not war.".

* When President Bush went to Atlanta to lay a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King Jr., on the 75th anniversary of his birth, he was greeted by protesters shouting, "Bush, go home" and "Peace, not war." A representative of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference questioned the "integrity" of Bush's timing "because last year at this time he took a stand against affirmative action ... which is part of Dr. King's legacy." National figures have many legacies, and the nation makes its own selection when it gives them honor. King's black-liberal claque may indeed be right about the vectors of his thought at the end of his life. But they no longer define the matter. If King is an example and an inspiration to all, then the President of the United States, in his role as pontifex maximus of the American civil religion, will, and should, honor him. But if King is still a partisan figure in the scrum of politics, let us revoke the holiday and wait another fifty years for matters to clear.