From America’s thirst for foreign oil to surging oil prices and record oil-company profits, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama says the Bush administration is leading the country down the wrong path. But who’s to blame? The Illinois senator keeps it in the family, blaming his own relative. The “black sheep” in his family, he calls him: U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cheney and Obama are distant cousins, and Obama played up the link in a stump speech at a high-school in Alton, a town in New Hampshire where the nation holds its first nominating primary, likely Jan. 8.

“We’ve been talking about energy independence since 1973,” he said. “Yet the biggest change since 1973 is that we actually import more oil as a percentage and gas prices have gone up and Exxon Mobile profits have gone up. Why is that? Well it doesn’t help when you put my cousin Dick Cheney in charge of energy policy,” he deadpanned to loud laughter from the several hundred who packed the school’s gym. “You know everybody has a black sheep in the family,” he added.