An important dynamic to keep an eye on: state budgets across the country are cratering, and where Republican governors and legislatures are having to deal with the mess a rupture is developing between them and the do-nothing national GOP. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Japan’s Finance Minister resigns after repeatedly appearing drunk at G7 conference in Rome.

From an article in tomorrow’s New York Daily News, by Tom DeFrank, who’s extremely wired in the Bush 41 world, among other places …

In the waning days of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney launched a last-ditch campaign to persuade his boss to pardon Lewis (Scooter) Libby – and was furious when President George W. Bush wouldn’t budge.

Sources close to Cheney told the Daily News the former vice president repeatedly pressed Bush to pardon Libby, arguing his ex-chief of staff and longtime alter ego deserved a full exoneration – even though Bush had already kept Libby out of jail by commuting his 30-month prison sentence.