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Mary Ann Akers, WaPo's Sleuth:

During a question-and-answer session toward the end of the luncheon, someone asked the vice president about his wife Lynne Cheney's revelation on MSNBC last year that "Dick and Barack Obama are eighth cousins."

The questioner jokingly asked the vice president if he and Obama were going to have a family reunion, to which Cheney replied he would "have no objections" though he said he doubted Obama would want one - "certainly not before November."

Then came the offensive punch line. Cheney explained that during the course of researching his family lineage for Lynne's memoir "Blue Skies, No Fences" last year, he learned there were Cheneys on both his father's and his mother's side of the family. There was a Richard Cheney on his mother's side, the vice president said.

"So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don't even live in West Virginia," Cheney quipped.

West Virginia politicians aren't laughing at Cheney's little joke, including his fellow Republican, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).

After several W.V. pols voiced their complaints, Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, issued an apology.