By DAN K. THOMASSON, Scripps Howard News Service

WASHINGTON - In the world of cutesy, sound bite politics danger lurks around every corner, especially for those who built their reputations on quick quips or snappy comebacks. More than one career has been sunk by loose lips, particularly in a day when things that used to be funny aren't any more.

WASHINGTON - Planning a trip to Mexico? Forget it.

WASHINGTON - If you lined up all the economists end to end you still would never reach a conclusion, a wise man once said. Those who practice the "dismal science" have a way of turning every discussion into a sedative and producing a scary new headline every day.

WASHINGTON - You're fooling yourself if you think that religion in politics is a recent phenomenon. Even before the so-called religiously inspired "Moral Majority" of evangelicals openly dipped more than just a toe in politics, a candidate's faith always was an issue.

WASHINGTON - Legendary Justice department prosecutor Henry Petersen had a hard and fast rule. When bringing a case against a high profile public official, the threshold for prosecution should be considerably higher than otherwise, enough evidence to convince any jury. The stakes for both sides, he said, were too high.

WASHINGTON - The old axiom "don't sweat the small stuff" isn't always the best advice, particularly when applied to politics. It often is the little things that get one into big trouble as President Barack Obama is finding out.

WASHINGTON - With less than three months before the important midterm elections it is clear that Congress has no stomach for straightening out the immigration mess nor for that matter does the Obama administration, although the president has at least paid lip service to the idea.

WASHINGTON - Some 25 years ago I was asked to speak at a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the death of the famous war correspondent, Ernie Pyle, who had been killed by a Japanese sniper on a small island off Okinawa in the last days of World War II. The memorial was held in the Punch Bowl, the national military cemetery overlooking Honolulu.

WASHINGTON - Americans never seem to learn. They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, negating every good intention.

After the trauma of Vietnam and vowing never to let it happen again, they get bogged down in two wars in the Middle East for reasons that are at the very best skeptical and that ultimately won't change much of anything.

WASHINGTON - What in the world was Charlie Rangel thinking?

The New York Democrat who is the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is battling to save what is left of a career that placed him among the most respected members of Congress over what he had to have known was ethically questionable behavior if not verging on illegality.