Yesterday, Joe Biden became the first US president not to attend a memorial ceremony at one of the three attack sites on an anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which murdered nearly 3,000 innocent people. Biden was flying back from a trip to Asia, where he attended the G-20 summit in India and visited Vietnam. Choosing to skip the somber annual tradition was a questionable and controversial decision, but it wasn't totally indefensible. Tending to alliances in the Chinese Communist Party's backyard, and especially engaging with India, is very much in America's national interests -- even if Biden generated several befuddling comments and cringe-inducing moments along the way. But this explanation from the administration is really something:
Yikes. The White House tells Fox News that Biden not commemorating 9/11 at an attack site like other presidents is fine because presidents weren’t still visiting Pearl Harbor after 22 years. pic.twitter.com/XxvNlTf2rL
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 11, 2023
Pearl Harbor was a devastating and deadly sneak attack by one military force against another. It happened long before most Americans were born. The threat of Imperial Japan no longer exists, and hasn't since the 1940's. By contrast, 9/11 involved the brutal murder of thousands of civilians. It happened within the living memories of most Americans. And while the forces responsible for the attack have been dramatically degraded in important ways, the underlying ideology and threat is very much still with us. Indeed, our vulnerabilities may well be heightened again due to this administration's Afghanistan policy (a catastrophe that the administration has downplayed and ignored for the last two years).
Look, at some point, it was going to become appropriate for a president not to participate an anniversary memorial in New York City, Greater Washington, or Pennsylvania. I'm open to the argument that yesterday reasonably may have been that point -- especially if the White House had emphasized the importance of the president pursuing strategic goals abroad, and citing the timing of the G-20 (although the presidential schedule could obviously have been slightly altered to accommodate a return to the East Coast in time for Monday's ceremonies). However, I cannot help but wonder if the snub was in some way tied to the administration's posture on the Afghanistan debacle, which was the denouement of a war that effectively began on 9/11.
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And if the White House wanted to quiet the criticisms of this choice, the last thing the president should have done was wander off script when he finally got around to observing the solemn day, uncorking another one of his infamous false memories in the process. This claim raised an alarm bell in my mind as soon as it left his mouth:
“I join you on this solemn day to renew our sacred vow, ‘never forget.’ … I remember standing [at Ground Zero] the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of hell.”
— The Recount (@therecount) September 11, 2023
— Pres. Biden commemorates 9/11 at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska pic.twitter.com/reG0FPWwyJ
"The next day." As it turns out, Senator Biden was in Washington on September 12, 2001, not looking into the "gates of hell" in lower Manhattan. Note the irony of his inaccurate claim about his own experience being delivered after urging the audience to "never forget" three times in a row. Perhaps he was jumbling the timeline and referring to his visit to New York a little more than a week later. Or perhaps he was absorbing Hillary Clinton's actual memory and turn of phrase as his own:
Did he just poach this memory and description from Hillary Clinton, who actually was there on 9/12/01? Or was he referring to his memory from a week later — the timeline of which he’s misremembered/repackaged for greater emphasis? https://t.co/9JZfMEej9x pic.twitter.com/sr1pM1zXmt
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 11, 2023
Joe Biden is a pathological fabricator and embellisher. Some of his lies and exaggerations are relatively minor and mostly weird. Others are more callously self-absorbed, uglier and more appalling. In isolation, this blip could easily be waved away as a small misstatement. But it didn't come in isolation. And given his deliberate decision not to pay his respects where Americans died yesterday, this was my overall reaction:
It may be too much to ask of Joe Biden, but since he chose to become the first POTUS *not* to attend a memorial at one of the attack sites on a 9/11 anniversary, he could’ve at least had the decency to get all the details correct when he finally delivered his remarks.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 11, 2023
Adding real injury to fairly minor insult, this is what the Biden administration also chose to do yesterday, of all days:
Biden just released $6 Billion to Iran, the world’s #1 sponsor of terror
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) September 11, 2023
On 9/11 https://t.co/PSxEXd56SD
Yes, they rewarded the world's most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, a virulently anti-American Islamist regime, with an effective ransom payout for kidnapped Americans -- in a deal unveiled to the world on September 11th. Go back to bed, Mr. President.
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