At Ground Zero, a no-spin zone for a day
Saying, as President Barack Obama did this week, that, "we don't need to spike the ball" implies, of course, that a touchdown has been scored.
In the same way, the forgoing of speeches during Thursday's sun-dappled ceremony at the World Trade Center site meant not that politics would be forgotten, but that the political message would telegraph itself.
For a short, poignant time, murky details of the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, tensions over the release of photos and questions about Pakistan's role would be eclipsed. Just by showing up in New York, by thanking rescuers and by meeting survivors and victims' family members, Obama ensured all the news coverage would make the emotional link between Sunday's events to the massacre of 2,752 people by al-Qaida hijackers in lower Manhattan a decade ago.
Politicians on hand at the memorial found it a tasteful moment to forget certain other things. That is, the din of construction equipment wasn't the only noise appropriately muted.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's was the last hand Obama shook as the president departed the memorial scene. The two smiled and exchanged words out of earshot of reporters. Earlier, Obama and Giuliani toured the Eighth Avenue firehouse of Engine 54, Ladder 4 and Battalion 9.
It was a good day to forget Giuliani's warning in the 2008 presidential campaign that any Democrat elected to the White House would wave a white flag to terrorists. And it was just as good a day to forget Vice President Joseph Biden's mockery of the ex-mayor for habitually uttering "a noun, a verb and 9/11."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was also on site, his office handling many of the arrangements. It was a good afternoon to forget how his hosting of the 2004 Republican National Convention -- held 4 miles up the West Side -- led to dubious arrests of people merely walking near anti-war demonstrations.
Departing the wreath-laying ceremony, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said, "I think it was special that the president came and honored this site today and honored the people we lost."
It was a good day to let memory lapse on Cuomo's snarky 2002 broadside about Gov. George Pataki (not in attendance) merely holding Giuliani's coat on 9/11.
It was a good day to forget the institutional fiscal tension between another dignitary on hand, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and New York's side of the bi-state Port Authority, which owns the trade center site.
And, it was a good day to forget the fits and starts and errors and financial fights that marked the site's reconstruction plans from one year to the next.
Looking up at the rising frame of the new One World Trade Center, Christopher Ward, the Port Authority's executive director, explained to some out-of-town reporters before the ceremony: "The 'Freedom Tower' was a name born in another time. We needed to make sure real estate got built and we don't need to name buildings after freedom."
Memory of the good and bad together can be quite dizzying.
