Cheney, Obama embrace family ties

It seems as though Vice President Cheney and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is fighting for a chance to be the next White House occupant, are embracing a recent revelation that they are related.

{mosads}Both referenced the family ties, which were revealed by Cheney’s wife, Lynne, on Friday and had fun with the connection.

When asked about the fact that he and Obama could trace back their ancestry to an immigrant couple from France, Cheney said that he and “cousin Barack” have not had a chance to talk about the newfound kinship.

“I didn't know whether that would help him or hurt him, so I thought I'd probably stay away from him,” Cheney said in an interview on CNBC’s “Kudlow and Company.”

Obama apparently believes that the revelation helps him — he used it on the stump in Ohio on Friday.

The senator, in a part of his speech relating to energy independence, said the country would not rid itself from dependency on foreign oil because “my cousin, Dick Cheney” is in charge of energy policy in the White House.

“We’ve been trying to hide that for a long time,” Obama quipped, as though he had known about the common ancestry.

“You know, everybody’s got a black sheep in the family,” Obama added. “They do.”