Should John McCain really have felt the need to apologize again and again for Bill Cunningham's sometimes funny, sometimes over the top comments before his appearance at the Hamilton County Memorial Hall on Tuesday, February 26?

Cunningham, whom McCain claims to have never met, was entertaining the crowd before McCain's arrival Tuesday when his comments veered hard right and had some in the crowd roaring while others seemed quite uncomfortable. Among other comments, Cunningham called Obama a "prophet" and himself claimed to have experienced a sort of prophetic dream in which Obama was meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il, plus making plans to saddle up with Hezbollah. Cunningham also commented on the group of them singing around a campfire.

Personally, I can sympathize with at least some of the sense that Cunningham's rather crude commentary was attempting to reach. Obama, with a handful of years of state and federal legislative experience, is by far the weakest remaining candidate when the issue of foreign policy arises. His vascillations on some of the more pointed questions put to him, from comments on "talking to our enemies" about disagreements, to reassurances that he would invade Pakistan (a sovereign nation with an at least moderately cooperative government), have been used more than once by his detractors to prove his inexperience. What many conservatives are disagreeing with Cunningham on is not the message, but his delivery.

Although I am not yet convinced of McCain, either personally or professionally, I did feel somewhat embarassed for him at having to follow that act. It was roughly akin to Jerry Seinfeld following a pimply faced adolescent blowing fart sounds in his armpits.

Either way, it seems, that both sides seem to have come to some sort of unspoken truce when it comes to the use of Obama's middle name on the campaign trail. Why is that? Every other candidate has spoken in detail about their upbringing, childhood and what their life experiences and culture have instilled in them as mature leaders today. Why is Obama exempt from this and why can no respectable public figure refer to him by his full given name? If he were ashamed of it, would he not have changed it by now? If he is not ashamed of it, why should any person object to our use of it in any honest, personal reference to the candidate and his campaign. When we see him in foreign attire in countries with large Muslim populations in photographs taken as late as 2006, are we to turn the other way? Are we to elect a President of the United States who will accuse his opponents of dirty tricks when they simply make available pictures of him taken less than 24 month ago, that he willingly, soberly posed for? Should we consider electing a President, whose full name cannot be uttered prior to election day on the public airwaves or in print for fear it might offend, frighten or misinform some poor, unenlightened soul? Really? I thought these were exactly the tactics that progressives had been using for the last twenty years to win elections.

Conservatives, when the rubber hits the road in 2008, don't shy away from the utterance of the name Barack Hussein Obama. But, when it comes time to whip the crowd into a frenzy, leave the amateurs at home.

And one last thing. If you want to keep up with the chosen one (Obama), make sure the planted fainters at the McCain rally's are in the front rows so the cameras get a good shot at the guerneys, and get McCain to stop doing that weird little robot motion/chop with his left arm, it kind of frightens my daughter.