"You can pick your friends...."

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.

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.

Howie P.S.: Hotline has this anecdote:

True story: My three-year-old, who is now six ... was at the mock swearing in, where you become a senator. Cheney shakes hands with me and Michelle and our older daughter, and my youngest daughter decides to give him a five. So, she was trying to get him accustomed to his peeps."