Snaptu: On the town Obama keeps election promise to Michelle

There has been plenty of debate in recent weeks about whether Barack Obama has met promises made on the campaign trail over the environment, human rights and foreign policy. At least this weekend the US president ­indisputably fulfilled one election pledge – by taking his wife to New York for a night out.

"I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished," he said on Saturday night, as he and Michelle Obama set out for the evening.

When presidential couples decide to visit the Big Apple, even one as relaxed as the Obamas, there is no avoiding a kerfuffle. The trip involved a short helicopter ride on Marine One, followed by a flight to New York and then a second helicopter ride into Manhattan.

That incurred the wrath of Republicans. The Republican National Committee put out a statement contrasting the Obamas' trip with the bankruptcy of the General Motors, once the world's largest car manufacturer.

"Putting on a show: Obamas wing into the city for an evening out while another iconic American company prepares for bankruptcy," read the statement.

The two stops on the Obamas' New York itinerary were custom-designed for their tastes and interests. The first was dinner at Blue Hill, a chic but understated restaurant near Washington Square. The chef-owner grows his own vegetables, which is very much in tune with Michelle's championing of local food movements.

Then on to Time Square and the Belasco theatre for a performance of Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson. The secret service had cordoned off the entire block hours before their arrival.

Wilson, who died in 2005, is a chronicler of the black American experience through a cycle of plays set in Pittsburgh. This play focuses on the migration of the descendants of freed slaves from the south to the north.

The Obamas would have been intrigued not only by the subject matter, but also by the controversy that surrounds this particular revival. During his life, Wilson insisted that his plays were always directed by black artists as a means of helping to overcome discrimination within the theatre industry.

But this version for the first time has a white director, Bartlett Sher. His appointment prompted a heated debate, with some African-American critics praising it as a step forward in race relations and others lamenting it as an assault on Wilson's legacy.

Date over. Back to work and a big week ahead. Obama moves on today to deal with the fallout from the bankruptcy of GM before heading to the ­Middle East and perhaps the most important speech of his presidency so far: an address to the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday.

* Barack Obama

* Michelle Obama

* Broadway

* New York

* United States

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/31/barack-obama-michelle-broadway-date

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