Strom is his co-pilot

The Cheney trip -- you know, the one in which only Cheney himself and the Taliban knew the details:

"Traveling reporters were given strict instructions before Cheney arrived first in Pakistan: No saying he was leaving from Oman, no saying he was flying on a C-17 transport aircraft rather than his usual Boeing, no saying when he arrived, no saying in Islamabad that he would fly on to Bagram, and so on.

"The journalists were only allowed to discuss the trip with their spouse or significant other and one superior at their news organisation, on penalty of seeing the entire media squad dropped from the visit."

Chicago Tribune reporter Mark Silva has been blogging the trip, and has more the military plane Cheney used for the flights into and out of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"This particular C-17, a hulking gray cargo jet out of Charleston, S.C., is dubbed The Spirit of Strom Thurmond, with the name painted decoratively in black above the front passenger door that Cheney boarded," Silva writes.

You can't make this shit up.