Cheney popularity trails OJ, Jacko

Dick Cheney, who's just about the most unpopular man in America, comes to Cheeseland Monday to help John Gard try to get elected to Congress. Let's hope some of his magic rubs off on Gard.

The Gard campaign is asking, and raising, big bucks, so Cheney must still have some cachet with the base. Have your pic taken with the veep, $5,000. Go figure.

The country as a whole gives him an 18% approval rating.

"How low is that?" you ask. (I thought you'd never ask.)

The Washington Post puts it into some perspective:

... How bad is a rating of 18 percent? According to a quick review of polling archives, it arguably makes Cheney:

· Less popular than singer Michael Jackson , bedmate of little boys and world-class screwball. One in four Americans -- 25 percent -- told Gallup polltakers last June they were still Jackson fans after the onetime King of Pop was found not guilty of child molesting.

· Less popular than former football star O.J. Simpson was after his arrest and trial for murdering his estranged wife and her companion. Three in 10 -- 29 percent -- of all Americans had a favorable view of Simpson in an October, 1995 Gallup poll.

· Less popular with Americans than Joseph Stalin is with Russians. In 2003, fully 20 percent said Stalin, blamed for millions of deaths in the former Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s, was a "wise and humane" leader. Thirty-one percent also said they wouldn't object if Uncle Joe came back to rule again, according to surveys conducted by Russian pollsters.

· Much less popular than former Vice President Spiro Agnew in his final days in office. Forty-five percent approved of the job that Agnew was doing as President Richard Nixon's veep in a Gallup Poll conducted in August 1973, little more than a month before Agnew resigned and pleaded no contest to a criminal tax evasion charge arising from a bribery investigation.

· Far less popular than former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey days after he announced in August 2004 that he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a man and would resign. His job approval rating bumped from 43 to 45 percent.

But take heart, Dick. About 35 percent of those interviewed by the CBS poll didn't offer an opinion of you. Perhaps some of your supporters were shy. And other polls released later in the week pegged your popularity considerably higher.

Besides, even at 18 percent you're not the least popular public figure in America. You're slightly better liked than that fabulously blond and brainless party girl Paris Hilton. She was viewed favorably last June by 15 percent of the public, according to Gallup. -- Richard Morin

OK, one more Cheney-Jackson joke, courtesy of Jay Leno: "What's the difference between Michael Jackson and Dick Cheney? One has pasty white skin, fake body parts and he's creepy; the other's Michael Jackson."