Dick Cheney's Incest Joke Incenses West Virginians!

In his best move as vice president since that time he shot an old man in the face with a shotgun, Dick Cheney joked about West Virginian hillbilly incest today at the National Press Club. And noweveryonein West Virginia is pissed beyond belief at the vice president, whose long record of lookin' out for the little man and his farm now comes into question.

Cheney was at the National Press Club to commend the winner of the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, which was given to Wonkette for the 5th straight year (we sent several old interns to receive the prize, but they were all getting high on their college sex campuses.) Then a wiseacre reporter asked about that old, tired, eternally rehashed news bit from many months ago that Barack Obama is Dick Cheney's eighth cousin -- perhaps the one that liberated Auschwitz from the Communists?

The questioner jokingly asked the vice president if he and Obama were going to have a family reunion, to which Cheney replied he would "have no objections" though he said he doubted Obama would want one - "certainly not before November."

Then came the offensive punch line. Cheney explained that during the course of researching his family lineage for Lynne's memoir "Blue Skies, No Fences" last year, he learned there were Cheneys on both his father's and his mother's side of the family. There was a Richard Cheney on his mother's side, the vice president said.

"So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don't even live in West Virginia," Cheney quipped.

HEY-O!

West Virginia politicians aren't laughing at Cheney's little joke, including his fellow Republican, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).

"This is exactly the type of stereotyping that we don't need from our elected officials," Capito tells the Sleuth. "It's disrespectful, and it's certainly not funny. The Vice President should know better than to make a remark like this one. We all work hard to further West Virginia's good name, only to have comments like this tarnish it. As a proud state, I can say we are disappointed."

Rep. Nick Rahall, a 16-term Democratic congressman from West Virginia, was equally as irate. "We may owe the vice president a debt of gratitude for yet another great West Virginia slogan: Dick Cheney is not from here," Rahall told us.

But West Virginians arereallyupset that Dick Cheney didn't take the question seriously enough.Ishe related to Obama?Ishe a hexadecaroon? 'Cause West Virginnie's had enough'a HOO-SSEIN alright!

UPDATE: Dick Cheney apologizes for the first time in his life (although it's through a spokesman, and it's fake):

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride tells us, "The Vice President's offhand comment was not meant to hurt anyone. On reflection, he concluded that it was an inappropriate attempt at humor that he should not have made. The Vice President apologizes tothe people of West Virginiafor the inappropriate remark."

We may not be West Virginians, but the vice president's smear against one of America's greatest states offends us, too. Wonkette demands an apology. But knowing this administration, we'll never see it.

 Dick Cheney's Incest Joke Irks West Virginian Lawmakers [WP/The Sleuth]