“If only.” Those are the verbal crutches America must discard in a post-9/11 world.

If only the State Department hadn’t been so sloppy in issuing visas to the 9/11 hijackers. If only police and state troopers had been able to check the immigration status of the hijackers who were pulled over for speeding before the attacks. If only universities had been more diligent in monitoring the hijackers’ whereabouts. If only the feds had listened to alert agents’ recommendations to profile young Arab students in our flight schools. If only someone, anyone, had said something when they saw the suspicious behavior of the jihadists on dry runs.

“I don’t feel no ways tired. I come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me that the road would be easy. I don’t believe He brought me this far,” drawled presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton, mimicking black voice to a black audience, at the First Baptist Church of Selma, Alabama.

Not enough attention has been paid, on the Iraq question, to the factor of universal access to information.

For many years, in many wars, news reporters could not get near the front-line scene. And where high politics were concerned and dictators held sway, newsmen — and foreign diplomats — not only were stymied, they were deliberately misled.

They say you learn something new everyday. Well, I sure did learn a lot last weekend.

On our recent vacation, I learned quickly that there is a huge difference between a concierge, a butler and how much you should tip each one.

I am really big on keeping non-related people in my family tree. Although they may not be related to me, they are all connected to my family somehow. Admittedly, some of the "daisy chains" get pretty long and several are really "way" out there, but I have a method to my madness.

“Do what I want, or I will do my best to hurt you.”

If a man walked into your home or business and spoke the words above, he would be subject to arrest.

There is no photograph of Satan, so we must improvise with what we have: Osama bin Laden.

Looking like a Middle East version of a bad “Just for Men” beard dye commercial, OBL has resurfaced to deliver another rambling address to America.

When my sister arrived for the family get-together, she set down a platter on the kitchen island and turned to me with a fretful look.

It was not, as I feared, the floods in Wisconsin and Kentucky last month that kept me from hearing from my friend Viki. She probably didn’t even notice them.

Answers to your questions about life, religion and the Bible

Pastors get some of the darndest, most interesting questions from people in their churches and people they meet. Here are a few that I’ve gotten over the years and via email since this column started.

If you’ve just returned from your Labor Day vacation and are scanning the headlines from recent newspapers — don’t panic! America is not threatened by a category 5 hurricane named “Larry Craig.”

“Do what I want, or I will do my best to hurt you.”

If a man walked into your home or business and spoke the words above, he would be subject to arrest.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights turns 50 this week. Created by the 1957 Civil Rights Act, signed into law Sept. 9 that year by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Commission’s work rarely makes the front pages as it did in the heyday of the civil rights movement.

The Wall Street Journal did a good job this week of exposing the vicious tactics of the far-left outfit MoveOn. The story centers on Democratic Rep. Brian Baird, an ardent opponent of the Iraq War, who recently traveled to that hellish country and, surprisingly, came back saying that the “surge” is improving things there.

Recently, I was one of 60 or more law enforcement chaplains gathering in northeast Georgia for several days of training.

All of my life I’ve been able to eat anything I wanted, anytime I wanted, and as much as I wanted. Well, not any more.

Devotees of this column will hopefully give us a little “gold star” for having caught wind of the “Draft Fred Thompson” movement long before most media knew of it.

Odd names have always fascinated me. First names, last names, it doesn't matter, just odd names that take some thinking to learn to spell.

As a general rule, candidate endorsements in political campaigns are both over-reported and overrated.

Think about it: When was the last time you, or anybody either of us knows, said, “I fully intended to vote for John Kerry for president until my lieutenant governor endorsed George W. Bush and made me change my mind.”

The eerie Kabuki dance that is Iraq is about to enter a new phase where death is the only certainty. The Democratic Party is hell-bent on pulling out of the desert killing fields, while the Bush administration is trying to buy time with an aggressive push against the murderous “insurgents.”

Devotees of this column will hopefully give us a little “gold star” for having caught wind of the “Draft Fred Thompson” movement long before most media knew of it.

“Don’t you think — because of that program — society benefits?” an actor friend of mine asked me recently. She referred to a taxpayer-provided health care program that she “turned to” during one of the many “down periods” during her career.

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign hints that agreeing to refrain from campaigning in outlaw Florida and Michigan primaries is a noble sacrifice bowing to party rules.

Sometimes we find guts in strange places, and cowardice where there should be strength.

Last month’s largest cowardice report came from The Netherlands, where a Catholic bishop said that Christian-Muslim animosity could be reduced through one simple measure: “Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will call God Allah?”

Some set the matter aside as being nothing more than verbal play for the benefit of word-men. What term properly designates what we are doing, and what we are enduring, in many parts of the world, the symbolic center of which is the Twin Towers site in Manhattan?

Here’s a peculiar thing about the holier-than-thou Campaign Finance Reform crowd.

Whenever the stench of dirty money starts wafting from Democrat Party coffers, the clean election lobbyists are nowhere to be found.

Economic theory does not operate in a vacuum. Institutions, such as the property rights structure, determine how the theory manifests itself. Similarly, the law of gravity isn’t repealed when a parachutist floats gently down to earth. The parachute simply affects how the law of gravity manifests itself.

So, now (or just about now) — Fred Thompson, Republican candidate for president! As Jack Benny replied when the stickup man gave him the choice of his money or his life, “... I’m thinking.”

During the first 30 years of my life, I had no health insurance. Neither did a lot of other people, back in those days.

My good friends, Mary Jean "M.T." and Glen Allen met the year I moved to Georgia, 1959. They were employed at the Atlanta airport, Glen as an air traffic controller and M.T. as a teletype operator for Delta Air Lines.