Video Former presidents attend NYC ceremony for 9/11 anniversary
By Caroline Ashford · Reporting from Richmond, Virginia ·
There is a specific kind of silence that only exists in the presence of men who have held the nuclear codes.
# The High Altar of State Ritual
A specific silence follows men who have held the nuclear codes. It is a heavy, curated quiet that tells the public the adults have arrived and the machinery of state still turns. This silence descended upon New York City on Friday morning as George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden gathered with their wives for the quarter-century anniversary of the September 11 attacks. ABC News said the image projected seamless continuity. The Central Oregon Daily said the trio stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a display of bipartisan solemnity.
A Tool for Collective Grief
To a casual observer, the scene looks like unity. To those who prefer the sturdy reality of a parish hall to the polished marble of a press briefing, it looks like a ritual. The state uses these ceremonies to bind a fractured public when the country splits. The government used this same tool during the funeral of John F. Kennedy. In 1963, the state took the shock of the gunshot and the grief of a widow to weld a stunned public to the office of the presidency, turning a private death into a social bond. The 9/11 ceremonies operate on the same frequency; they do not celebrate the men on the podium, but reassure the public that the Institution survives the catastrophe.
Photos vs. Promises
Supporters argue these gatherings provide a necessary anchor for the citizenry. They claim that in an age of polarization, the sight of George W. Bush—the man who led the initial response—standing with Obama and Biden signals a path forward. They argue this peace trickles down to the neighbors in Lynchburg or the shopkeepers in New York, suggesting that if the men at the top can mourn together, the rest of the country can too.
This is a mirage. The unity on display is not a moral victory or a healing of the national divide; it is a professional courtesy among a tiny, exclusive club. It is the etiquette of the elite. While the former presidents maintain their rapport in charcoal wool and silk ties, the places where people actually live—the firehouses, the local clinics, the dining room tables of the bereaved—carry the actual weight of the tragedy. Medical reports show that a quarter-century later, first responders still battle chronic coughs and rare cancers.
A wide moral gap separates the ritual from the recovery. The state claims the country is united because three men stood together for an hour, yet the people who climbed the stairs of the Twin Towers still fight for the health benefits they were promised decades ago. The ritual serves the state, but it fails the citizen.
Does Ritual Replace Care?
The pattern repeats with liturgical precision. The event has transitioned from the raw, bleeding wound of 2001 into a series of managed annual commemorations. We have moved from the visceral horror of falling steel to the sanitized versions found in documentaries and glass museum exhibits.
The danger of the ritual is that it allows the state to claim closure without delivering care. This will likely trigger a surge of lobbyists and angry letters demanding expanded health benefits, using the anniversary as a catalyst. George W. Bush may even offer a retrospective on his legacy. But these are reactions to the ritual, not the result of it.
The record of American mourning suggests we excel at the theater of the state but falter in the care of our people. Kennedy’s funeral stabilized the government, but it did not stop the volatility of the 1960s. Similarly, these anniversary ceremonies provide a momentary peace that vanishes the moment the motorcades leave the city.
A nation proves its strength not by how well its leaders stand in a line for the cameras, but by how it treats the oxygen tanks and wheelchairs of the men and women who saved others while the world watched. Until the care for the first responder is as seamless as the choreography of the presidents, these ceremonies are merely expensive wallpaper covering a crumbling wall.