The world, and especially the nation, remembered Pearl Harbor last Wednesday. December 7 is, indeed, a day that has lived “in infamy.” So the president and the man who will follow him into the White House both issued appropriate statements. A moving ceremony took place at the scene of the attack, with a 94-year-old survivor from the USS Arizona honored and speaking. Among those killed in the attack were 1,177 of his shipmates. A flight of planes, in the missing man formation, passed overhead and taps was played by a Navy band. Hard, even if you were merely watching on television, to keep the emotions down.

A day or two earlier, the prime minister of Japan had announced that he would soon be making a visit to Pearl Harbor. Not to apologize, it was quickly made clear, but as a gesture toward “healing.”