After all the talk of “Swift Boating” this year, Senator Obama has no problem meeting with SBVFT founder T. Boone Pickens if it helps him get a few votes:

Texas oil and gas billionaire T. Boone Pickens broke post-partisan bread with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama in Reno on Sunday as part of his personal quest to save America’s energy future. . . . Pickens made his biggest mark in the 2004 election when he gave $2 million to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to help finance its damaging attacks on Democratic nominee John Kerry in that year’s presidential race, which created a new verb in the English language: to be swift-boated, as in sunk to the bottom of the sea by assaults on your reputation and character. That may have made for a somewhat uncomfortable moment for Obama on Sunday, although he was pretty smiley at the event. Before meeting with Pickens in a conference room at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, the two shook post-partisan hands and posed for a few post-partisan pictures. Then a reporter asked a partisan question: “Senator, how does it feel to be meeting with somebody who tore down your Democratic Party colleague in the last election?” Obama’s dodgeball answer: “Ah, you know, he’s got a lot longer track record than that. He’s been doing, ah, he’s a legendary entrepreneur and you know one of the things that I think we have to unify the country around is having an intelligent energy policy.