There are things that seem inevitable in retrospect, but if the people running things at the time happened to be a different group of individuals, there would have been nothing inevitable about it.

For instance, if Ronald Reagan had won the GOP nomination in 1976 instead of 1980, and defeated Jimmy Carter, as he most likely would have done, the Shah of Iran would not have been overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini, American hostages would not have been held for over 400 days and the Islamic reign of terror would not have been ushered in by the feckless goober in the White House.

How do I know this? Because on the very day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, January 20, 1981, the hostages were released. Bill O'Reilly may labor under the impression that was a coincidence, but nobody else does.

— If Mitt Romney had been elected in 2012, I dare say that ISIS would not have been dismissed as the JV team and that Romney would not have done everything in his power to empty both Gitmo and the federal prisons of terrorists, killers and drug dealers. Neither would he have used a presidential edict to circumvent Congress in order to grant amnesty to millions of Hispanics who have no business being here, nor would he have rolled out the red carpet for thousands of potential terrorists posing as refugees from the Middle East.

— Speaking of which, I have grown weary of hearing the governors and ex-governors running for their party nominations say “In my state, I did such and such, so visit my website, give me your money and elect me president.”

Kasich, Bush, Christie, and even George Pataki and Martin O'Malley, may be telling the truth about their gubernatorial accomplishments, but it’s basically meaningless. In some states, after all, the opposition party may control the legislature, thus stifling the governor’s best intentions. Besides, each state is distinctive. In one state, gun control laws may mean you can barely get your hands on a water pistol, whereas in other states, the ones that recognize the legitimacy of the Second Amendment, large numbers of people are allowed to carry concealed bazookas.

In short, being a governor no more prepares you for the life and death decisions faced by a president than shacking up with someone tells you how good a husband or wife, father or mother, that particular someone will turn out to be.

On the other hand, roughly 60% of the governors deserve commendations for at least announcing their refusal to accept the so-called Syrian refugees (aka the ISIS out-reach program) in their respective states. Governor Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire deserves a special shout-out because she is the only Democrat to add her voice to the chorus.

The question at this point is whether they have the legal authority to overrule the federal government, especially one under the thumb of the schmuck who has an open-door policy when it comes to Hispanics, who are most likely to vote for Democrats, and Muslims, who are most likely to massacre Americans.

— Speaking of which, when I hear people like Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, complain about the preponderance of Hispanics and blacks in our prisons, I understand that’s what Democrats have to say when running for office. But I assume that if you hooked them up to lie detectors, they would admit that a racist society had nothing to do with their incarceration, and that they’re in jail because a preponderance of crimes committed in America happen to be committed by Hispanics and blacks.

— Another inconvenient truth you’ll find tucked away in FBI crime statistics is the fact that on average, 27 “honor killings” are committed every year by Muslim fathers and brothers in the United States. It would take a true degenerate to not only commit such a barbaric act, but to then attribute it to honor.

— It’s no secret that single women vote overwhelmingly for liberals. Married women, on the other hand, vote overwhelmingly for conservatives. I guess the main difference is that the unmarried airheads see abortions as an unfortunate side-effect of having sex, while grown-ups tend to regard babies as a positive result of the activity.

This tells me that Republican mothers are falling down on the job when it comes to raising their daughters. Far too many of these young women obviously think having an abortion is like going to the dentist, the main difference being that you don’t get to go home with a new toothbrush.

To be fair, Republican fathers aren’t doing a lot better when it comes to raising sons, for whom an abortion is a lot like having someone else go to the dentist.

— After Caitlyn Jenner was named Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine, James Smith sent the Woman of the Year plaque his late wife, Moira, was awarded by the magazine in 2001 back to Editor Cindi Leive.

In his note, Mr. Smith, whose wife had won the award for rushing into the South Tower to rescue strangers on 9/11, suggested in no uncertain terms what Ms. Leive could do with the plaque. He went on to say that with women in the military fighting and dying for America, with female cops and firefighters doing their best to protect us, and with other women on the front line in the war against cancer and the like, he found it incomprehensible that Glamour couldn’t find a more worthy recipient than a guy who claims to be a woman.

At last report, none of the other 2015 honorees — has-been actress Reece Witherspoon, trophy wife Victoria (Spice Girl) Beckham and lesbian activist Billie Jean King — have returned their plaques.

— I keep wondering why Vladimir Putin remains so cautious when he sees how fearful the U.S. and Europe are of taking on ISIS. Members of this administration even have the gall to suggest it could take years to defeat this ragged band of ragheads who lack an air force and drive around in open trucks. If memory serves, it took George H.W. Bush about a week or so to defeat Iraq, and keep in mind that Saddam Hussein actually commanded a modern day military that came complete with tanks, planes and heavy artillery.

Even after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the recent series of shootings and bombings in Paris, French President Hollande has limited his response to bombing ISIS in Syria, an approach that Obama has already shown to be of negligible value when it comes to exterminating cockroaches.

If I were Putin and shared his expansionist goals, I would take advantage of the fact that Europe and America — both the leaders as well as most of their citizens — hide under their beds at the mere mention of armed conflict. They repeat the mantra “No boots on the ground” as if it’s a magical incantation. Let the diplomats duke it out, they say, ignoring the fact that the diplomats gave us Munich in 1938 and the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.

If I were Putin, my motto would be “Crimea yesterday, Syria today, London tomorrow.”