CBS sticks with the president; a gossipy question about those French filmmakers.

Virginia Heffernan, Slate's TV critic, is keeping a blog of the 9/11 anniversary TV coverage.

It's now 366 days since the world did or did not change forever, and one day since the media—branded, merchandised, omnipresent—showed none of the discretion or restraint that some archivists found in the steely, brave Pearl Harbor anniversary newspapers.

Yesterday morning's pageantry was covered live, to unobjectionable effect; it was mostly music and names. Last night, live coverage charged on as the president, who earlier had inspired the nation with 60 seconds of speechlessness, supplied seven minutes of truisms from Ellis Island, with Lady Liberty to his right.

Earlier, on 60 Minutes II: "The President's Story" (CBS), viewers had gotten an intriguing Bush-eye view of Sept. 11, 2001, largely from Air Force One. "I was trying to clear the fog of war—and there is a fog of war," Bush said, savoring the veteran's jargon.

For her part, Laura Bush, in brown lipstick and a blue blouse, mused on the bygone disaster, but if you meet her, don't praise her composure since on her advice you shouldn't have been watching TV at all.

Flight 93, which aired on TLC last night, pulled out all the low-low-art stops: ominous recreations, jostling camera work, and solarized portraits of terrorists. With its references to "healing" and its kitsch effects, Flight 93 is easy to dismiss, but it tells the story of the Pennsylvania crash conscientiously, without the bigger-better-faster imperative that has amplified the New York coverage to deafening.

I have a prying question about Jules and Gédéon Naudet's much-praised 9/11, which re-aired last night (on CBS). Two sultry Gauloise types were "old friends" with a twinkly, beefy blond American firefighter? How did this threesome meet? Moreover, over what Budweiser or vin rouge did they decide to recruit a firefighting rookie so they could make a movie about masculinity? (OK, I'm now told that the firefighter only met the filmmakers because he's a part-time actor, which may explain his stagey voice-over.) Maybe 9/11—even in advance—really did bring us all together.

Good for the frères Naudets, however: They followed the much larger story that emerged with extreme assiduity. Their red-smoke footage from inside the towers is unavailable anywhere else.

Peter Jennings talked to eerily articulate children on ABC Kids. ABC also gave its account of smuggling uranium—unchecked—from Istanbul to New York. And finally, on VH1's behind-the-scenes at the Concert for New York, Melissa Etheridge asked, "When is it OK to rock again?"

I don't know. But the time has come to put such questions aside. On Sunday, the Patriots are playing the Jets.