WASHINGTON — Under a perfect blue sky, President Obama stood stock still on the neatly-manicured White House South Lawn and said not a thing.
In a capital where words are weapons, the silence was disarming.
The President, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden and Jill Biden had quietly walked out of the glistening white residence to observe a moment of silence on Wednesday, the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
They were flanked by a military honor guard and White House staff. If you looked toward the South Portico of the nation’s most famous home, a flag was at half-staff.
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The two couples held hands as a bell tolled at 8:46 a.m., exactly the moment when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. The poignant simplicity was inescapable.
A bugler played taps. The couples placed their hands over their hearts.
Then, they turned and walked back to the residence, apparently without a word passing their lips.
At 9:15 a.m., Obama departed the White House. His motorcade crossed the Memorial Bridge and then passed Arlington National Cemetery, whose 624 acres are testament to casualties and veterans of all our great battles dating to the Civil War.
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He arrived at the Pentagon, the center of American military might, for a memorial service of distinctly local and painful resonance.
It was here that an American Airlines plane was deliberately crashed that same morning and where there is a 9/11 memorial.
Again, there was the playing of taps as Obama stood in front of his Pentagon hierarchy and the Army’s chief of chaplains. He placed his hand over his heart.
At 9:37 a.m., the time of the crash, he and the assembled observed a moment of silence for the victims.
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Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey spoke first and referred to quilts that hang in the building close to the plane’s point of impact. Sewn by Americans, they pay tribute to the victims but also, he said, serve as a symbol of resilience.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel followed and underscored the great American virtues personified by those who died that day.
But it was Obama who most captured the moment and exhibited his rhetorical best.
