UPDATE: Vice President Dick Cheney has apologized through his spokeswoman for making an offhand joke during a speech at the National Press Club Monday stereotyping West Virginia as a state prone to incest.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride tells us, "The Vice President's offhand comment was not meant to hurt anyone. On reflection, he concluded that it was an inappropriate attempt at humor that he should not have made. The Vice President apologizes to the people of West Virginia for the inappropriate remark."
Cheney's statement came after West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin added his voice to the chorus of outrage from Mountain State politicians and demanded an apology from the veep.
"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," Machin said in a statement. "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."
And this from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.): "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."
ORIGINAL POSTING:
Did Dick Cheney just hand West Virginia to the Democrats, or what?
'Cause his remark at the National Press Club today is bound to rub plenty of folks in the Mountain State the wrong way, especially those who are sick and tired of hearing West Virginia incest jokes. Already, members of the West Virginia congressional delegation - Republicans and Democrats alike - are ticked off.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/06/dick_cheneys_incest_joke_irks.html?hpid=topnews