The state’s most powerful Republican in the U.S. House –U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Strafford — used his notoriously pithy wit during his convention speech Saturday morning to poke at both of the remaining Democrats running for president, while praising presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

Blunt jabbed at Hillary Clinton’s discredited “sniper” episode by observing that it was surprising that she “had more war stories than John McCain.”

McCain, he said, “doesn’t need to make up stories about his war years.”

Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama, continued Blunt, has explained away the controversial rantings of his former pastor by saying, in effect, that ” ‘I sat in church for 20 years, but I never listened.’ “

But Blunt’s more scathing observations about Obama compared him to John F. Kennedy, a Democrat and arguably the nation’s most telegenic president during the last half of the 20th century.

If elected president, Blunt predicted that Obama will be “the most popular president outside the United States since (Dwight) Eisenhower.”

But like JFK, Blunt continued, Obama will be seen as soft by our international enemies.

As Blunt told it, then-Soviet head Nikita Khrushchev opted to build the Berlin Wall and attempt to put missiles in Cuba after meeting with JFK in  Vienna shortly after the latter took office in 1961.

JFK exhibited uncertainty during that first meeting, and was deemed by Khrushchev to be a soft touch, Blunt said.

In contrast, McCain will exude a strong image to other countries, Blunt continued.

As a result, Blunt predicted, American voters “are going to see Barack Obama as a guy who’s not ready yet.”