Derailing a president's choice for the US Supreme Court is difficult. But it has happened eight times in the last half-century, through the kind of Senate combat that led to the 1987 defeat of Robert Bork and administration missteps like the 2005 case of Harriet Miers.

Dr. King's complex iconography can be understood with a simple lesson: He brought racial justice into the mainstream as a fundamental element of American democracy.

In a speech at a foreign policy conference in Moscow, Putin said "during my recent telephone conversation with Mr. Donald Trump, our opinions coincided that the current, unsatisfactory state of Russia-US relations, undoubtedly must be straightened out. As I already have said, our country is prepared to go down our part of that road."