Trump reportedly skipping ground zero for Pentagon 9/11 ceremony

So the president is skipping ground zero this year and going to the Pentagon instead. Cue the predictable outrage machine treating this like he's skipping the anniversary altogether, which he isn't. He's choosing a different memorial at a different site where nearly 200 people also died that day. Somehow that's being framed as a snub to New York, as if the Pentagon wasn't part of September 11th too.

Every president handles the rotation of 9/11 ceremonies differently. Biden went to all three sites over his term. Obama favored the Pentagon more than once. Nobody wrote a story calling that a betrayal of Shanksville or ground zero. The instant reflex to treat Trump's calendar choice as some kind of statement says more about how reflexively his moves get scrutinized than it does about the moment itself.

There's a real conversation to be had about how these anniversaries get politicized every single year regardless of who's in office, and how families of victims deserve better than watching their grief become a prop in a partisan back and forth. But that conversation isn't advanced by manufacturing outrage over a scheduling decision involving one of the three actual attack sites from that day. If the complaint is really about symbolism, the flags at half staff and the moment of silence matter more than the zip code where the president happens to be standing.

What would actually be worth criticizing is if any president, of either party, let these anniversaries become smaller, quieter, less observed as the years pass. That's the drift worth watching. Where Trump stands on September 11th this year is a footnote next to that.