Vice President Dick Cheney, hard as he tries, is just not a very popular man. So it wasn't surprising to hear the rumors that he wouldn't even be attending the Republican convention in September. John McCain doesn't want to have Cheney's unpopularity tied to him -- a recent poll showed only 23 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of the vice president, and that's a very, very heavy anchor for McCain to carry dangling from his neck.

Now it turns out that Cheney will be attending the convention after all. Not only that, he'll be speaking. NBC's First Read blog has the word from Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell, who said, "The Vice President looks forward to participating in the Republican National Convention and continuing to work for the election of Sen. McCain and other Republican candidates in the coming months."

According to Mitchell, the actual date of Cheney's speech has not yet been decided.

Update: Politico's Jonathan Martin reports that Cheney will speak on the first day of the convention, the same day as President Bush.