It’s hard on the 20th anniversary of the radical Islamic terrorist attack on 9/11 to think of where we are now.

I remember the words of George Bush standing on the rubble, with his arm around a firefighter. The people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon, he said. I remember thinking, as a person from New Jersey, that was the confidence and the strength that he needed to project at that moment — how important that was.

For 20 years, they did hear from all of us.

Then came Joe Biden and the debacle he left in Afghanistan. He planned on visiting all three 9/11 sites today, despite some of the 9/11 families previously saying they didn’t want him to come, if he didn’t declassify some of the files related to the attack which he just did. He was not scheduled to speak at any of the events for the 20th anniversary, probably because even his people wouldn’t want to carry the weight of him saying something wrong on such a day.

But he did release heavily edited recorded remarks.

There were a few things that struck me about what he said. He’s often looking off in the distance, not at the camera, and the lighting/make-up is really off — making Biden look even worse.

Biden spoke about the unity in the country that followed the attack.

“We also saw something all too rare. A true sense of national unity. Unity and resilience, the capacity to recover and repair in the face of trauma. Unity and service. The 9/11 generation, stepping up to serve and protect in the face of terror, to get those terrorists who were responsible, to show everyone seeking to do harm to America that we will hunt you down we will make you pay. That will never stop. Today, tomorrow, ever, from protecting America.”

He continues, “Unity is what makes us who we are. America at its best. To me, that’s the central lesson of September 11th, it’s that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength. Unity doesn’t mean we have to believe the same thing but we must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation.”

He’s right. There was a true sense of national unity, where people came together to support each other and to hold up America.

But it’s a speech of someone who’s obviously trying too hard. It’s so hypocritical and dissonant on every level that it’s Biden who is saying this, since he’s been such an incredibly divisive force since he came into office, even attacking Americans this week, saying that he was “losing his patience” with them for being unvaccinated, then throwing out unconstitutional dictatorial vaccine mandates.

Apparently “unity” to Biden means we have to force people to believe the same thing, contrary to what he said. That’s not a fundamental respect for each other.

While we did get Osama bin Laden (under Barack Obama — an action Biden himself was against), he just handed Afghanistan over to terrorists. It’s now going to be a terrorist state which will harbor thousands of ISIS, al Qaeda, and other terrorists. That’s not making them pay, that is stopping making them pay, contrary to what he said.

Then he spoke about “resentment and violence” against Muslim Americans, “true and faithful followers of a peaceful religion,” saying that caused that “unity” to “bend” but not break. Not the time to preach at people or to say this, if the purpose of this day to recognize those who have died and the attack on America by radical Islamic terrorists.

Biden left Americans and the Afghan allies who helped us behind. That’s not unity, and one hopes that is never what the “soul of America” is. We never forget and we never leave people behind — even if Joe Biden does.