Mitt Romney's allies leaked the idea that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was near the top on the candidate's list of potential running mates to The Drudge Report Thursday evening, making a lot of people laugh in the process. There are a lot of reasons Romney won't pick Rice as his No. 2, as Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell enumerates, and one of the most obvious comes from a Los Angeles Times report on Romney's $4 million fundraiser with Rice's fellow Bush administration alum, Dick Cheney: "A pool of reporters was allowed into the country club event, but media photos of Cheney and Romney together were not permitted," Maeve Reston reports. That's right: Romney so fears being tainted with the last Republican administration that he won't even have his picture taken with Cheney. Republicans have been mocking President Obama for using a "Blame Bush" strategy, so why would Romney want to pick Rice and make the Bush administration a central focus of his campaign?

Since there are no photos from their most recent meeting, if you're wondering what Romney and Cheney look like together, there's a Getty Images photo of the pair goofing around in 2002.

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Elspeth Reeve