The Cheney charm - it runs in the family

Two Cheney gems. One from Talking Points Memo, where darling daughter Liz claims that Bush honoured fallen American soldiers like Obama just did but Bush didn't bring along cameras. Problem is, there is no record of Bush ever honouring the dead, as Cheney claimed.

"I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That's really hard for me to get my head around...It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this."

The other nugget comes from a memoir by Craig Ferguson. During a visit to the White House, Ferguson and his wife were introduced to the Cheney's Picassos. Mrs. Cheney explained the Picassos are kept hidden away - not for safekeeping but to protect their children!

On meeting the Cheneys, Ferguson recounts that his wife discussed art with Mrs. Cheney, who proudly described the Picasso sketches she owned. When Megan [Ferguson's wife] asked Cheney where she hung the artwork, Cheney's response stunned them:

"Oh we don't," replied Mrs. C. They're nudes, and we have grandchildren. We don't want them to see them when they come over."

"But they're Picassos," protested Megan.

"But they're nudes," smiled Mrs. Cheney dangerously.

I put a hand on Megan's elbow. I didn't want trouble. You don't want to be on the Cheney shit list... Once they were gone, I told Megan that Dick Cheney had been ogling her breasts.

UPDATE: Message to Liz: apparently, Reagan used the dead for a photo-op, too.

H/T: Blue Texan at Firedoglake

UPDATE II: Leave it to Digby to put the whole Cheney/wingnut blogger uproar about Dover into perspective:

This is idiotic. Presidents often greeted the dead soldiers until Bush senior was shown on a split screen yukking it up while coffins were shown coming in at Dover. Then the whole thing became a political calculation. Clinton was photographed at Dover greeting the coffins of civilians killed in terrorist attacks and accidents rather than military. (Of course he didn't have any soldiers killed in combat during his term.) Bush didn't bother to go at all and they banned all photography of the returning coffins during his term purely for political reasons. They didn't want the citizens seeing how many dead bodies there were.