Seems Dick Cheney's backdoor bullying knows no bounds. His office is stopping the implementation of regulations to reduce ship speeds near ports to protect right whales, the most endangered of all whales. The scientists are blowing the whistle:

While I appreciate the value of vigorous scientific debate, I question why White House economic advisors are apparently conducting their own research on right whales and why the Vice President's staff is challenging the conclusions of the government's scientific experts. The appearance is that the White House rejects the conclusions of its own scientists and peer-reviewed scientific studies because it does not like the policy implications of the data. This is not how the review process is supposed to work.

There's a lot of crap that Dick Cheney has done over the last seven years that he should be held accountable for. But this isn't one of them:

Although a heavy police presence kept the media and curious local residents at a distance, Cheney's visit did stir up a bit of controversy when a New York Daily News photographer snapped a picture of a small Confederate flag hanging inside a garage on the hunt club property.

Criticizing Cheney because their is some little Confederate flag inside a garage is just over the line. Hell, the stars and bars is part of the official state flag of Mississippi. Should we protest every time the president or vice president visit that state?

Cheney is a power-hungry thug who should be locked up in his Gitmo gulag and be subjected to those "enhanced interrogation techniques" he loves so much. But let's not confuse the issue with crap like this.

Some words of wisdom from none other than Dick Cheney on why invading Iraq is a really bad idea. Too bad it's from 1994.

Money quote:

Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

I watched Bush today as he explained his commuting the jail sentence of Scooter Libby. He claimed that he agreed with the conviction. This is interesting, in that, if Bush really agreed with the conviction, then he knows that Libby lied and obstructed justice. But why was Libby lying? Why did he obstruct justice? In the past, the president had praised Libby, and certainly thinks he is an honorable man. What would make an honorable man break the law?

Unless you believe Bush is an absolute moron, you have to think that he gave this some thought. What was Libby trying to cover up? Certainly, if Bush was as disengaged from this case as he pretends, he would have tried to find out exactly why Libby lied.

The other option, of course, is that Bush knows full well why Libby lied. It's really the only option that makes sense.

I'm waiting for some Bush defenders to trot out the "Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich" line, how when Clinton was leaving office he gave a pardon to this notorious tax cheat, probably because of the generous donations of his ex-wife.

Yes, bring it on.

Because you see, Scooter Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer! In fact, Clinton specifically cited Libby as a Republican lawyer who "reviewed and advocated" the pardon.

Yes, let's dredge up how terrible that pardon was, and how Libby supported it, and how his position in the Bush Administration might have stalled any investigation into this pardon.

Now that Scooter Libby has his get-out-of-jail-free card, the coverup of the Valerie Plame affair is complete. Scooter took the fall for his boss Dick Cheney, and when his lawyers couldn't get him off in court, George W. Bush nixes his jail sentence.

By not pardoning Libby, Bush wanted to tippy toe his way through the minefield of this issue. He thinks that the fine and probation will be punishment enough. Yea, like that will interfere with him getting a golden parachute from Cheney's friends in high places.

This appears to be Bush's first commutation of sentence, and goes against his own stated guidelines for granting relief to convicted felons. He can try to call it a rose, but we can smell the stench from here.

From Maureen Dowd (via Froomkin) on Dick Cheney's claims to be separate from the executive branch:

"I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it's quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution."

And parts two and three of the Cheney series are out there, and they show a man who is really out there.

...but were afraid might be true, Chapter one.