From the AP:

WASHINGTON - The Federal Aviation Administration has imposed flight restrictions over Dick Cheney's new Maryland home, angering private pilots who say they can't fly overhead even when the vice president isn't around.

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association spokesman Chris Dancy said Tuesday the FAA only imposes restrictions at Cheney's Jackson Hole, Wyo., home when he's there. He questioned the need to have the restrictions in place at all times over a home in Maryland, which has much more air traffic.

Cheney's new home is on the Chesapeake Bay in Saint Michael's, Md., about 30 miles east of Washington. The restricted airspace has a radius of one nautical mile and was established Nov. 22...

Airspace restrictions are an inconvenience for private pilots. If they stray into restricted space, they could have their pilot's license taken away, be escorted away by fighter jets or, in a worst-case scenario, be shot down.

Look, we wish no harm on the vice president, and we realize that it's a post 9/11 world, yadda, yadda, yadda. But an imperial presidency is one thing; this airspace hubris is just one more sign that Cheney is creating an imperial vice presidency, and if the public be damned, why not throw in a few pilots. Besides, isn't Maryland a "blue state"?

And this story isn't the half of it. In 2004, we vacationed in Jackson Hole (before the aspens started turning!), and on a wildlife Jeep tour, our guide told us how much the locals hated it when Cheney came to town -- the no-fly zone, the traffic restrictions -- and he pointed to pricey communication towers only turned on when the veep was there. He said local fisherman were buzzed by helicopters practicing for an emergency evacuation of Cheney the next time that his bum ticker gave out while fly casting.

Cheney's a guy who doesn't think any of the rules apply to him. When HE and his staff fly, they "have been unilaterally exempting themselves from long-standing travel disclosure rules followed by the rest of the executive branch, including the Office of the President, the Center for Public Integrity has discovered." And this excellent column by Joel Connolly of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reminds us of his staged pheasant hunts here in Pa.:

Such hunts are matters of legacy and of privilege. Remember the 1950s pictures of Prince Philip and Indian maharajas, waiting in a high platform as terrified native beaters drove terrified tigers beneath their guns.

We won't even get into the whole torture thing.

There's only one good thing about empires.

They fall.

January 2009 is still 26 months away, but already St. Michaels is starting to smell a lot like Elba.