You'd never know it from the media's Obama worshipers covering it, but this week's Democratic National Convention was a three-ring circus complete with an assortment of sword swallowers, clowns and magicians.

It was the magicians who took the center ring and proceeded to convert their publicly expressed doubts about Barack Obama into ringing endorsements of his alleged fitness to be this nation's chief executive and commander in chief.

That's an amazing feat of legerdemain, especially if the woman in the wizard's cap is Hillary Rodham Clinton, who up to now has solemnly assured us that Barack Obama is not even remotely equipped to be president.

Targeting his failure to vote on key abortion measures she quipped, “A president can't vote ‘present.' A president can't pick and choose which challenges he or she will face.”

Now, with a wave of her magic wand, Obama's unfitness to occupy the White House (which she and her husband are still convinced is theirs) is suddenly transformed. He is now uniquely qualified for a presidency she had warned us he was utterly unfit to occupy.

Too bad. She was right the first time, but that was before she joined the circus in Denver.

Then, with a blare of trumpets, Joe Biden enters the center ring and waves his magic wand. The man he railed against as unqualified to be president is now, he tells us, the very man for the job. The same man, he recently insisted, has no business running for president.

Said Joe before he became a magician (and Barack's running mate): “I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.”

Obviously, Joe wants us to believe Obama has taken a crash course in presidential fitness and passed with flying colors.

Next comes Bill Clinton the sword swallower, who wants us to swallow the whopper of his belief in Obama's presidential fitness, as he all but worships at the altar of Obamamessiah - the same Obama about whom just a day or two earlier Bill Clinton had suggested was not the man for the job, the same Obama he regularly pilloried while campaigning for his wife.

In a stem-winding speech he pulled out all the stops in trying to convince us that Obama is fit to take the office of president and solve all problems great and small. He pledged he'd go all-out to help Obama, but he never quite got around to saying that he'd vote for him in November.

And of course they sent in the clowns. What circus would be complete without them? There was the parade of sad-faced clowns - the losers, featuring John Kerry and Jimmy Carter, and even Mike Dukakis. Al Gore couldn't make it - he was too busy waving his magic wand to save the planet from a non-existent threat.

Among the happy-faced clowns were Nancy Pelosi and her Senate counterpart Harry Reid, taking time out from the sideshow on Capitol Hill where they have presided over that comic skit called the 110th Congress, which came into the Capitol tent waving promises that were never kept.

Watching this spectacle may have been fun, as long as nobody took it seriously.

Now they're taking the show on the road. We'll see how it plays in Peoria.

Mike Reagan, the elder son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network. E-mail comments to reagan@caglecartoons.com