So even on a day that celebrated an historic achievement of racial progress that might have united Americans, Mr. Obama used the moment as a moral bludgeon against those who disagree with his policies. He can’t resist caricaturing his opponents as Gordon Gekko without the social conscience, and asserting that “the free market” will grind Americans into poverty unless government that already commandeers nearly 40% of private American income is granted even more power to redistribute more of it.

This is not the kind of unifying message that has Americans of nearly all races and creeds still recalling King’s words with admiration a half century later. If the President wonders why he hasn’t been able to calm America’s partisan furies, speeches like this are one answer.

Today isn’t the time for an economic rebuttal, but it is worth noting the irony of Mr. Obama using the triumph over segregation to extol the virtues of government. Segregation was a policy imposed by government. Jim Crow was so hard to break for so many decades because it used the police power of the state to enforce racial separation.