What Dick Cheney really thinks of West Virginia

by: Carnacki

Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 19:13:02 PM EDT

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.

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV03):

"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.

U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D):

"West Virginians are the hardest working, most decent people I know. Anyone who spends time with them gets it. The Vice President should be more careful about cheap shots aimed at the very people who elected him."

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-Beloved):

"That a man who has ascended to the seat of Vice President of the United States would openly display such contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen is an insult to all Americans.

"Now that he or the Administration he represents no longer needs their vote, Mr. Cheney apparently feels that he is now free to mock and belittle the people of West Virginia. With his trademark arrogance, the Vice President even added 'You can say those things when you're not running for re-election.'"

Gov. Joe Manchin (D):

"I truly cannot believe that any vice president of the United States, regardless of their political affiliation, would make such a derogatory statement about my state or any state for that matter. West Virginia is home to some of the most patriotic people in the nation and our sons and daughters have answered the call to duty every time a president has needed their service. They deserve better from the vice president, and so I would simply ask for his apology."

After Manchin asked for his apology, Cheney's PR person offered an apology.

What's interesting is Cheney's friend and Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito said she found Cheney's remark "disappointing" but did not call for an apology. Maybe she's afraid he won't come and fund raise for her as he has in the past.

UPDATE

The Associated Press story has a line from Cheney that makes his remark sound even worse:

"You can say those things when you're not running for re-election.''

Go ahead, dick, tell us how you really feel about the state.