New Jersey Needs Some Full-Time Fact Checkers

A while back New Jersey hired a consultant to draft a motto for the state. The consultant came up with: “We’ll Win You Over.”

Nah, said then-Gov. Richard Codey. Let’s do something a little better. So Codey asked for suggestions and held a poll to see what was the best slogan: “Come See For Yourself” was the winner, and the state got ready to put that in their ad campaigns.

Except, ehhh… they didn’t. Why? Well, the slogan had already been used by West Virginia. And, so, the motto that had been unveiled with lots of fanfare in January is scrapped. New Jersey has to start all over again.

The best suggestion I actually heard for the state’s motto — and I can’t remember where, I think a Monica Yant Kinney column in the Inquirer — was “Everything You Heard Is True.”

But since the powers that be will probably never use something as fun as that, let me suggest this new motto: The Show-Me State. It’s short, it’s hip, it’s funny! What could go wrong with that one?

New Jersey: ‘We don’t check things out so good’ [AP/MSNBC.com]
Dec. 5, 2005: Telling you the news you already know