WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There's no sign of a family reunion planned, but U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are distant cousins.
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So says the vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, who said she discovered that her husband of 43 years is eighth cousins with the senator from Illinois.

The two men could hardly be more different. Cheney is an advocate for pursuing the war in Iraq to try to stabilize the country, while Obama wants to get U.S. troops out of Iraq.

Mrs. Cheney told MSNBC on Tuesday that it was "an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths."

The common ancestor was Mareen Devall, who the Chicago Sun-Times said was a 17th century immigrant from France.

Mrs. Cheney said she discovered the link through family research for her new book, "Blue Skies, No Fences," about growing up in Wyoming.

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
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"I can tell Obama got all of the intellect in that odd gene pool...who the hell would of ever thought this".............hmmm this gives more credibility to Obama's run for Presidency in a weird way...I still HATE Dick Cheney though. Look forward to hearing Obama at NCCU in November".

10/16/2007 9:45:58 PM

So fuck a bitch fuck a hoe and I let ya know
Because they come and go like the wind blows

10/16/2007 9:46:45 PM

Darwin says we're all related

10/16/2007 9:46:58 PM

lol

8th cousins...that shit doesnt even count

10/16/2007 9:47:51 PM

^^Bible does too.

[Edited on October 16, 2007 at 9:48 PM. Reason : ,]

10/16/2007 9:48:04 PM

Quote :

"The two men could hardly be more different"

then he starts listing the policy differnces

10/16/2007 9:48:40 PM

Hell yeah it does count..there's similar genetic material running through both of their veins.....I know all of the racist Cheney supporters are having heart attacks as we speak!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. This makes me laugh!

10/16/2007 9:49:19 PM

dick is gonna beat lynne tonight

10/16/2007 9:50:26 PM

Cheney is related to Obama HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

10/16/2007 10:29:26 PM

who the FUCK! is Barck Obama

10/16/2007 11:04:38 PM

I wonder if Cheney and Obama knew of this geentic disposition prior to Cheny's wife reporting to the news media about it yesterday?

10/17/2007 11:05:04 AM

Quote :

"Reacting to the news, Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton told CNN's Dana Bash with tongue in cheek, "Obviously, Dick Cheney is sort of the black sheep of the family.""

10/17/2007 11:26:21 AM

Ahahahaaahaah

10/17/2007 11:28:50 AM

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and everyone is 8th cousins with everyone

10/17/2007 11:29:48 AM

so did cheneys ancestors rape a slave or something?

10/17/2007 11:43:56 AM

^ you're right that must be it, couldn't be anything in the last, oh, i dunno, 150 years instead....

must have been a slave rape

yeah

....

10/17/2007 11:46:09 AM

Cheney/Obama common ancestor was from the 1700s. Obama's mother is white, so i assume its from her side, since his father was from Africa.

Quote :

"and everyone is 8th cousins with everyone"

not quite.

GWB and Kerry, for instance, was widely reported to have been 9th cousins via some English guy (Edmund Reade) in the late 16th century.

http://msn.ancestry.com/landing/strange/bush4/tree.htm

its been shown that of all people with European descent share a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) as late as the 10th century AD.

Nature. 2004 Sep 30;431(7008):562-6.
( http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7008/full/431518a.html )

i forget what it works out to be exactly, but that means most americans and europeans (and many asians and africans -- anyone who has any european heritage whatsoever) are at most 25th cousins distant, though likely to be significantly closer than that.






[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 12:16 PM. Reason : MRCA]

10/17/2007 12:10:38 PM

nvm

[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 12:11 PM. Reason : 17th century]

10/17/2007 12:11:32 PM