We Remember...

Friday Fun

The unofficial start of summer at the Jersey Shore...

I will not be posting very often in the next week, in honor of a couple of landmark events:

Memorial Day, 'nuff said.

Barry Goldwater died ten years ago next Thursday. America lost an icon and a great man.

The "Defending the American Dream Summit" is next Thursday and Friday. Leave your computers and go to Trenton to join us for a great event.

All in all, a short, busy week. I will post when I can, but now, it's off to the beach. Enjoy the story below, which I did not write, and I don't know who did:

The Creation of the Jersey Shore

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael, the Archangel, found Him resting on the seventh day. He inquires of God, "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downward through the clouds. "Look, Michael, look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put life on it. I'm going to call it earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of the earth, "For example,
Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while Africa is
going to be poor. The Middle East over there will be a hot spot." God
continued, pointing to different countries, "This one will be extremely hot and while this one will be very cold and covered with ice."

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a large land mass with an ocean as it border and said, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God, "that's the Jersey Shore, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful beaches, rivers, lakes, and climate. The people from the Jersey Shore are going to be modest, intelligent,
and humorous, and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, and high achieving people, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then exclaimed, "What about balance, God? You said there would be balance! Everyone and everything seems so totally perfect in this place you call the Jersey Shore?"

God replied wisely, "Wait until you see the assholes I'm sending down from New York every summer."

'RAQ STAR

BHO's Gaffes: oops!!

Barack Gaffes
The Obama machine.

By Michelle Malkin

All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of “potatoe.” The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush’s questions about new scanner technology at a grocers’ convention to brand him permanently as out of touch.

But what about Barack Obama? The guy’s a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign:

Last May, he claimed that tornadoes in Kansas killed a whopping 10,000 people: “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll: 12.

Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, S.D., audience, Obama exulted: “Thank you, Sioux City. ... I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.”

Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.” On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?

Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement: “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.” Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil-rights movement as a whole.”

Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by homing in on a lack of translators: “We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.” The real reason it’s “harder for us to use them” in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.

Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multibillion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear-waste cleanup: “Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.” I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he’s voted on at least one defense-authorization bill that addressed the “costs, schedules, and technical issues” dealing with the nation’s most contaminated nuclear-waste site.

Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: “Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”

And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn’t “pose a serious threat to us” — cluelessly arguing that “tiny countries” with small defense budgets can’t do us harm — and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”

Barack Obama — promoted by the Left and the media as an all-knowing, articulate, transcendent Messiah — is a walking, talking gaffe machine. How many more passes does he get? How many more can we afford?

© 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Pig and Pony Show

Americans for Prosperity Foundation Launches Statewide Pork & Taxes Tour

Tour with 24-foot pig to wrap up at State House rally on May 29

BOGOTA – The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) today announced the kick off of a statewide road tour designed to rally grassroots opposition to higher taxes and pork-barrel spending in the Garden State.

The 21-county tour with the pig named Ten Pence is part of AFPF-NJ’s Defending the American Dream Summit and rally on May 29-30, 2008. Hundreds of taxpayers will rally on the State House steps against big government policies and regulation. Following the protests against Governor Corzine’s toll hike proposal, strong reactions from small towns as the state threatens to cut off tax dollars, and opposition to entitlement programs such as the new Paid Family Leave Act, citizens will take the debate where lawmakers cannot ignore them with the 3,000 pound pig.

"Our leaders in Trenton have wrought havoc on our once-prosperous state," AFPF-NJ’s Director Steve Lonegan said. "We’re going to show them that some citizens are going to stay and fight to save New Jersey."
The following day, AFPF-NJ activists will gather again for a top line-up of speakers and workshops covering the costs global warming policies, transparency in government, and grassroots political training. Mark Levin of WABC Radio will serve as the keynote speaker for the event. On Friday afternoon, Robert Ingle, Gannett Newspaper Trenton Bureau chief and co-author of the best seller The Soprano State, will moderate the debate between the candidates running to represent New Jersey in the United States Senate in front of hundreds of citizens.

The Summit will also include a debate among US Senate candidates Democrat Donald Cresitello, and Republicans Murray Sabrin, Dick Zimmer, and Joe Pennacchio.

Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFPF believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFPF educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org.

Priceless:

Projected budget shortfall: $2,500,000,000.00

State Spending on Abbott Districts this year: $4,640,000,000.00

Increase in State Spending on Abbott’s this year: $209,000,000.00

Abbott District waste revealed by Audit: $83,000,000.00

Amount State will seek in repayment: $0

Retirement package for Abbott Superintendent: $740,000 + pension

Watching legislature and executive branches falling all over themselves in “shock”:

Priceless

McCain!!

It's long, but worth the time if you are interested in who will lead this country after January 19, 2009.

U.S. Senator John McCain delivered the following remarks during the first stop of his "Service to America" tour.

Thank you. It's good to be back in Meridian. As you might know, I was once a flight instructor here at the air field named for my grandfather during my long past and misspent youth. And it's always good to be in Mississippi, which you could call my ancestral home.

Generations of McCains were born and raised in Carroll County, on land that had been in our family since 1848. The last McCain to live on the property, which the family called Teoc, was my grandfather's brother, Joe McCain. I spent a couple summers here as a young boy, and enjoyed it immensely.

I had never had a permanent address because my father's naval career required us to move frequently. But here, in the care of my very likeable Uncle Joe, I could imagine, with a little envy, what it must have been like for the McCains who came before me to be so connected to one place; to be part of a community and a landscape as well as a family.

By all accounts, the McCains of Carroll County were devoted to one another and their traditions; a lively, proud and happy family on the Mississippi Delta. Yet, many McCains left here as young men to pursue careers in what has long been our family's chosen profession -- the United States Armed Forces.

My great-grandfather was the sheriff and never left. But his brother, Henry Pinkney McCain, was a major general in the Army, and organized the draft in World War One Camp McCain in Grenada, Mississippi is named for him. My great uncle, William McCain, was known as "Wild Bill" for his "dynamic" personality -- he was reputed to have ridden his horse onto his future father-in-law's porch to ask him for his daughter's hand.
He chased Pancho Villa with General Pershing, was an artillery officer in World War One, and retired a Brigadier General. Both men are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, as are my father and grandfather.
We trace my family's martial heritage back to the Revolution. A distant ancestor serve d on General Washington's staff, and it seems my ancestors fought in most wars in our nation's history. All were soldiers -- both Henry and Bill McCain were West Pointers -- until my grandfather broke family tradition and entered the Naval Academy in 1902. He was succeeded there by my father, then me, and then my son.

As I noted, the naval air field here is named for my grandfather, who had an illustrious career in the Navy, and who remained proud of his Mississippi roots until the end of his life. I have only very early memories of him. I was just nine when he died. But he was an unforgettable man, a lively, colorful, though infrequent, presence in our lives.

To spend time in his company was as much fun as a young boy could imagine. He loved his family, and we were spellbound by him. He was a slight man and gaunt, but he filled any room with his deep voice and high spirits.

He was devoted to the Navy, but in personal comportment, he was anything but regulation.

He was a rumpled, informal man, who wore a crushed cap with the crown removed that the wife of one of his aviators had given him; kept his shoes off when he worked in an office; tobacco leavings were always scattered about him, as he rolled his own with one hand; possessed a mischievous sense of humor, and was unusually close to sailors and junior officers who served under him, and revered him. They called him, "Popeye;" his family called him, "Sid;" and his fellow officers, "Slew," for reasons I never learned.

After graduating from the Naval Academy, he sailed around the Philippine Islands on a gunboat captured from the Spanish, the executive officer to the great Chester Nimitz. He returned to the United States on the U.S.S. Connecticut, the flagship of Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet.

He served on an armored cruiser in the First World War, escorting wartime convoys across the U-boat infested Atlantic.

In 1935, after the Navy ordered that all aircraft carrier skippers must themselves have earned their wings, he trained as a pilot. He was 52 years old at the time, and a Navy Captain. By his own admission, he never learned to fly well. A subordinate recalled later, "the base prayed for his safe return each time he flew." But he managed to earn his wings, and left Pensacola to command the naval air station in the Panama Canal Zone, where I was born.

My father, Jack McCain, was an officer at a submarine base there, one of the few occasions in his adult life when he lived in close proximity to the man he admired above all others.

Though they lived far apart for decades, no father and son could have been closer. My father described his father as "a very great leader and people loved him...the blood of life flowed through his veins a man of great moral and physical courage." He had learned everything about leadership from his father, he said. [Both were highly individualistic men with outsize personalities, but were completely dedicated to the United States Navy. Neither ever wanted any other life, and while both were guilty of more than a few regulation infractions, and shared a few vices, they adhered strictly to the code father had taught son: never lie, steal or cheat.]

Both took a great interest in the views and well-being of the men who served under them.

They believed military leaders learned as much from the people they commanded as they taught them. They were demanding, but fair and compassionate commanders.

"We are responsible for our men," my father once said, "not the other way around. That's what forges trust and loyalty." They shirked no duty, braved extraordinary dangers, and were exceptional leaders. They were the first father and son to become four star admirals.

My grandfather commanded the fast carrier task force in the Pacific under Admiral Halsey, and devised many of the tactics that were employed by carriers for many years after. He was instrumental in Japan's defeat, and was given a privileged place on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri to witness the signing of the unconditional surrender that ended the war.

My father commanded a submarine in the Pacific during the war, survived several harrowing experiences, and had brought a Japanese submarine into Tokyo Harbor at the time of the surrender ceremony.

Both were exhausted at war's end, but happy to have the opportunity for a brief reunion.

They met onboard a submarine tender, and spent a couple of hours together. My grandfather was worn out and obviously ill. Years later, my father recalled the last words my grandfather had ever spoken to him. "Son, there is no greater thing than to die for the country and principles that you believe in."

After father and son parted that afternoon, my grandfather began the long trip home to Coronado. Not long after he arrived, at a homecoming party, he turned to my grandmother, and announced he did not feel well. He died a moment later of a heart attack. He had fought his war and died in service to the country he believed in.

My father could not return to the States in time for the funeral. My mother found him waiting for her to return to California from the funeral in Washington, weeping on the airport tarmac.

In time, my father, the son of a legendary naval leader, would rise to an even greater command than his father had. During the Vietnam War, he commanded all U.S. forces in the Pacific, at the top of a chain of command that included, near the bottom, his son, a naval aviator on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf, and later a prisoner of war in Hanoi. My father seldom spoke of my captivity to anyone outside the family, and never in public. He prayed on his knees every night for my safe return.

He would spend holidays with the troops in Vietnam, near the DMZ. At the end of his visit, he would walk alone to the base perimeter, and look north toward the city where I was held.

Yet, when duty required it, he gave the order for B-52s to bomb Hanoi, in close proximity to my prison.
I have lived a blessed life, and the first of my blessings was the family I was born into. I had not only the example of my distinguished male relations, and their long tradition of military service. I was fortunate to grow up under the influence of strong, capable, accomplished women.

First among them, my mother, the formidable Roberta McCain; her identical twin, Rowena; my strict and imposing paternal grandmother, Catherine; and equally impressive maternal grandmother, Myrtle.
For much of my childhood, my mother was the parent who raised me, my sister and brother.

My father was often at sea, and she bore all the responsibilities of both parents. She moved us from base to base, often d riving us across country on her own; managed our household; paid the bills; saw to our education and religious upbringing; and made of our itinerant childhood, an interesting, exciting time, rich with fascinating experiences.

She was and is a resilient woman, extroverted, uncomplaining, forthright and determined, who greets every challenge as an opportunity to measure one's strength of character and learn about the wider world beyond our immediate environment.

The family I was born to, and the family I am blessed with now, made me the man I am, and instilled in me a deep and abiding respect for the social institution that wields the greatest influence in the formation of our individual character and the character of our society.

I may have been raised in a time when government did not dare to assume the responsibilities of parents. But I am a father in a time when parents worry that threats to their children's well-being are proliferating and undermining the value s they have worked to impart to them.

That is not to say that government should dictate to parents how to raise their children or assume from parents any part of that most personal and important responsibility. No government is capable of caring for children as attentively and wisely as the mother and father who love them.

But government must be attentive to the impact of its policies on families so that it does not through inattention or arrogance make it harder for parents to have the resources to succeed in the greatest work of their lives -- raising their children. And where government has a role to play, in education, in combating the threats to the security and happiness of children from online predators, in helping to make health care affordable and accessible to the least fortunate among us, it must do so urgently, effectively and wisely.
Tax policy must not rob parents of the means to care for their children and provide them the opportunities their parents provided them. Government spending must not be squandered on things we do not need and can't afford, and which don't address a single American's concern for their family's security.

Government can't just throw money at public education while reinforcing the failures of many of our schools, but should, through choice and competition, by rewarding good teachers and holding bad teachers accountable, help parents prepare their children for the challenges and opportunities of the global economy.

Government must be attentive to the impact on families of parents who have lost jobs in our changing economy that won't come back. Our programs for displaced workers are antiquated, repetitive and ineffective. Many were designed for a time when unemployment was seasonal or a temporary consequence of an economic downturn, not for a time when systemic changes wrought by the growing global economy have, while promising undreamt of opportunities for ourselves and many historically poor societies, have cost too many parents the jobs they had assumed would be theirs for life. With the loss of work and the resources it provides families, come just as injurious losses to the emotional health of families. Work provides more than an income. It is a source of self- worth, pride and sense of purpose. Children learn as much from observation as instruction.

The mother or father who has lost hope along with their job can unintentionally impart that hopelessness to their children. A welfare check can't give a parent a sense of purpose. And among the most important things children can inherit from their parents is a sense of purpose, and an aspiration to be part of something bigger than themselves.

My parents taught me that, and I will always be indebted to them. But like many young people, I didn't understand the lesson very well until later in life when I needed it most. As a boy, my family legacy, as fascinating as it was to me, often felt like an imposition. I knew from a very early age that I was destined for Annapolis and a career in the Navy. In reaction, I often rebelled in small and petty ways to what I perceived as an encroachment on my free will. I concede that I remember the unruly passions of youth, and how they governed my immature sense of honor and self-respect. As I grew older, and the challenges to my self-respect grew more varied and serious, I was surprised to discover that while my sense of honor had matured, its defense mattered even more to me than it did when it was such a vulnerable thing that any empty challenge threatened it.

Like most people, when I reflect on the adventures and joys of youth, I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored. But though the happy pursuits of the young prove ephemeral, something better can endure, and endure until our last moment of life. And that is the honor we earn and the love we give when we work and sacrifice with others for a cause greater than our self-interest.

For me that cause has long been our country. I am a lucky, lucky man to have found it, and am forever grateful to those who showed me the way. What they gave me was much more valuable and lasting than the tribute I once paid to vanity.

I am the son and grandson of admirals. My grandfather was an aviator; my father a submariner. They were my first heroes, and their respect for me has been one of the most lasting ambitions of my life.

They gave their lives to their country, and taught me lessons about honor, courage, duty, perseverance and leadership that I didn't fully grasp until later in life, but remembered when I needed them most.

I have been an imperfect servant of my country for many years. But I am their son, and they showed me how to love my country, and that has made all the difference for me, my friends, all the difference in the world.