Hey, check this out:

What you’re looking at is the satellite image from Google Earth of the Naval Observatory here in Washington, D.C. Why am I showing you this? Because it’s the first time that I’ve checked out the Observatory since Obama came into office. Which means it’s the first time I’ve seen more than the equivalent of this:

I know it’s not that bad from this height, but when you tried to zoom in for a closer look, it all just went to hell in a messy, pixelated hand basket (and I’m a big dork when it comes to resolution issues in images). Why the blurry secrecy? The Naval Observatory is where the Vice President of the United States of America lives.

Ah…I bet you’re seeing this picture way more clearly now, aren’t you?

That’s right. Dick Cheney somehow pulled enough heft that even though we could clearly see the White House in satellite images (of course, the roof was blurred back then), we couldn’t see his house. Here’s a lovely explanation from Maureen Dowd:

The vice president, who believes in unwarranted, unlimited snooping, is so pathologically secretive that if you use Google Earth’s database to see his official residence, the view is scrambled and obscured. You can view satellite photos of the White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol – but not of the Lord of the Underworld’s lair.

Ding dong, the lord is gone. So now we can see a fairly clear image of what is now Joe Biden’s residence. I know it’s a silly trifle of a change, but for some reason it made me happy. I’m such a Google Earth geek anyway. Hours of my life can disappear in the blink of an eye when I get into this program. So it’s always been a personal irritation that I could never see this one little blip on the map.

If you’d like to share my joy, swoop on in to 38? 55’15.34″ N and 77? 03’56.73″ W in Google Earth (I think I got that right).