Obama, Bush, and Cheney Cousins
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James Joyner | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 |
In an interview with MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell this afternoon, Lynne Cheney revealed that while researching the Cheney family tree for her new book “Blue Skies, No Fences,” she discovered that the Vice President Cheney and Barack Obama are related — albeit distantly. According to Mrs. Cheney, the two politicians are eighth cousins.
MSNBC’s Adam Verdugo has also dug up a little publicized story from the Chicago Sun-Times reporting that Obama and Bush are 11th cousins, making him 10th cousins once removed with former President George H.W. Bush.
Talk about your six degrees of separation!
Lot’s of blogger reaction at Memeorandum. The funniest, in the sense that a picture speaks a thousand words, is from skippy the bush kangaroo (thumbnailed right).
Thus far, no creative Patty Duke allusions.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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I guess even the Obama family must have its own version of black sheeps. That there names are Cheney and Bush is rich with irony.
Aren't we all pretty much that related if you go digging? Sheesh.
IIRC research or computation or whatever a couple years back placed the most recent common ancestry (or maybe it was relatedness) at 800 years ago. That seems a bit recent for everyone in the world, but even if it's a couple thousand...
Anyway, yeah... 8th cousin means your 5th Great Grandparents shared common grandparents. My 7th great grandfather on the Ellis side was born in 1665. My 11th great grandfather was born in 1549, the farthest back I know. We're talking common ancestry circa the Mayflower.
Not that it isn't amusing, but I'm not sure people realize just how distant that is.
thx for the link, otb!
The fact that Cheney is related to B. Hussein Obama--an immigrant, trained in Islamic madrassas--is troubling. He cannot be trusted and should resign immediately.
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