"My reference to horses in the last 30 years is probably helping my kid to choose either the striped or the painted one on the merry-go-round," Bishop said. "The unfortunate thing is that most of the people who will be voting on this bill have the exact same background that I do."

His family, however, has a little more experience.

"I am happy to note, though, that I do have a brother who met his wife while he was the rodeo clown, and his wife was in the barrel racing contest," he said.

We suspect he is the only member of the delegation who can make that claim.

We'll refrain from making the obligatory "clowning runs in the family" joke, as long as the good congressman promises not to use these terrible puns ever again:

"I am asking you that the horse may be with you," he said, "and I urge you to vote 'neigh' on this piece of legislation."

Dirty tricks

Days before the GOP candidates' debate in South Carolina, voters there received an anonymous flier mailed from Rhode Island attacking the Mormon faith. It includes such subheads as "A gold digger turned prophet" about Joseph Smith, and another calling him the "Mohammed of the West." The flier includes a bibliography of its sources, but it's unclear who is behind the piece that is obviously out to hurt Romney's chances at the debate.

A few such fliers have been floating around in the Bible Belt disparaging Mormons, and the latest round shows that anonymous attacks are still coming.

Brotherly love

While the White House uniformly turned down all news media requests for an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney when he came to Utah recently, one intrepid organization broke through.

The Deseret Morning News landed an exclusive sit-down with the veep, resulting in a copyright exclusive front-page story. While no news was broken, the story still constituted a scoop - an interview that no other Utah news outlet got.

So what happened?

Well, the D-News editor Joe Cannon, former chairman of the Utah Republican Party, former Washington lobbyist, called in a favor from his brother, Rep. Chris Cannon, who happened to be aboard Cheney's plane en route to Utah.

"The Deseret News editor called Chris and asked for his help in getting an interview," said Joe Hunter, the congressman's chief of staff. "On the flight it was discussed with the vice president."

Hunter insists brotherly love did not factor into the assist.

"Had any other newspaper editor called and asked Chris to do the same thing, he would have done the same thing," he said.

OK, we'll bite.

We promptly told Hunter of our standing request to have the congressman help us get interviews with President Bush, Cheney and the Cabinet. No word yet on when the sit-downs are scheduled.

Sharpton vs. Romney

The Rev. Al Sharpton apparently doesn't like GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney because he's a Mormon. Sharpton, known for his staunch defense of the black community, verbally attacked Romney during a debate with writer Christopher Hitchens in New York this week.

"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," Sharpton said.

Sharpton says he wasn't being biased, though he later apologized to LDS Church leaders. Meanwhile, Romney's folks were all over it.

"It is terribly disheartening and disappointing to hear Reverend Sharpton offer such appalling comments about a fellow American's faith," said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden. "America is a nation of diverse faiths and common values, and bigotry toward anyone because of their religious beliefs is unacceptable."

Given the treatment Sharpton gave Don Imus for his verbal rampage, we wonder when Sharpton will disappear from the airwaves.

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* BURR and GEHRKE staff The Salt Lake Tribune's Washington bureau. Read more political tidbits at blogs.sltrib.com/utahpolitics.