WASHINGTON — Rush Limbaugh calls President Barack Obama “imam,” even though he knows the president isn’t a Muslim. Sarah Palin has openly doubted the president’s “cojones.” Turns out these two conservative firebrands have been dissin’ their own cousin.
The online genealogy service now reports that Obama and Palin are 10th cousins, and Obama and Limbaugh are 10th cousins once removed. In both cases, the ties date to the 1600s.
Obama’s distant family ties to former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney surfaced during his presidential campaign. Obama also is a distant cousin of billionaire investor Warren Buffett and actor Brad Pitt, according to .
Anastasia Tyler, lead genealogist on the latest project, said: “It just shows how all of these politicians, they’re on different sides of the political spectrum, but in the end they’re all part of what makes America great, and they all go back to deep American roots.”
The ties run through Obama’s white, Kansas- born mother’s side of the family. Obama’s Kenyan father’s background is harder to document as far back, and likely would have fewer connections to early American settlers. Genealogists say it’s typically harder for African-Americans and minority populations in the U.S. to trace their roots.
One might argue that everyone’s related if you go back far enough, but Tyler said 350 years isn’t nearly far enough to connect most Americans to one another. The Associated Press
