The Prince of Darkness Cheney went on Hannity’s show Tuesday to give his oh-so-expert opinion on what Democrats would be electable in 2008. For the record, he wants all the world to know that he thinks Hillary could win and Barack could not. To me, the translation is that he doesn’t consider Hillary much of a threat and that he is scared feces-less about Obama’s bucketful of charisma.

Cheney said Obama, an Illinois Democrat, was an "attractive guy. Don't know him well, met him a few times. I think at this stage, my initial take on him was he's been two years as a senator. I think people might want a little more experience than that, given the nature of the times we live in. But certainly, he's an attractive candidate. If he decides to run, he'll be a player on the Democratic side."

The meme he (and other Righties) are trying to instill is that Obama is just plain too inexperienced to be electable. Well, as my fictional pappy used to say – hogwash. First of all, by the time Election ’08 creaks around, Barack will have had nearly four years of experience working, quite prominently, in a high office in federal government. That’s four more years than Candidate Junior had behind his ears in 2000.

Honestly, I’m not ready to commit to voting for anybody in an election lineup that hasn’t even taken shape yet. But, I can tell you that Obama’s speech at the 2004 DNC was one of the most moving pieces of rhetoric in modern politics. He is young, charismatic, and energetic, he comes across as abundantly fair-minded, and seems to have forged a tremendous amount of positive press and congressional relationships for a junior Senator. And if I were Cheney, I’d be pretty freaked out too.

On a completely different and random note, it struck me today that an unusual amount of people in this administration seem to have nicknames that rhyme with Cheney. Some of simply have names that already rhyme such as Tommy Thompson, Mary Peters, Anthony Principi, and Henry Paulson, others are simply shortening their first names, such as Christine (Christie) Todd Whitman, Andrew (Andy) Scott Card, and Condoleezza (Condi) Rice, while others seem to have been mantled with a playful nickname such as Donald (Rummy) Rumsfeld and Michael (Brownie) Brown. Spooky?