Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

For the people of Israel and America are historic partners in the global quest for human dignity and freedom. We will always remain at each other's side.

There are simple answers to the nation's problems, but not easy ones.

[Our goal] is to help revive America's traditional values: faith, family, neighborhood, work and freedom. Government has no business enforcing these values but neither must it seek, as it did in the recent past, to suppress or replace them. That only robbed us of our tiller and set us adrift. Helping to restore these values will bring new strength, direction and dignity to our lives and to the life of our nation. It's on these values that we'll best build our future.

You will be competing against athletes from many nations. But, most important, you are competing against yourself. All we expect is for you to do your very best, to push yourself just one second faster, one notch higher, one inch further.

Double - no, triple - our troubles and we'd still be better off than any other people on earth.

And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.