Death will surely follow

Part four of the Cheney Chronicles details the Veep's undercutting environmental laws and regulations in favour of business interests. While hardly surprising at a general level, once again, ugly details of Cheney's magnetic influences are exposed.

In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

This from a man whom the Secret Service calls "Angler," supposedly because he likes fishing. Given Cheney's record and performance in other realms of policy, one can imagine that Cheney's version of fishing might likely involve explosions. No matter. Because his deadly defense of business interests over environmental concerns, in at least this case, has had the same effect or worse.