diff -up Cheetah-2.4.4/SetupConfig.py.bak Cheetah-2.4.4/SetupConfig.py
--- Cheetah-2.4.4/SetupConfig.py.bak	2014-07-21 14:24:11.839067227 -0700
+++ Cheetah-2.4.4/SetupConfig.py	2014-07-21 14:28:28.642988415 -0700
@@ -60,7 +60,11 @@ if not os.getenv('CHEETAH_INSTALL_WITHOU
     try:
         from setuptools import setup
         install_requires = [
-                "Markdown >= 2.0.1",
+                # Markdown is an optional dep (Cheetah still works without it).
+                # Removing markdown as a hard requirement here as the
+                # setuptools dep makes markdown a hard dependency for any code
+                # that uses pkg_resources
+                #"Markdown >= 2.0.1",
         ]
         if sys.platform == 'win32':
             # use 'entry_points' instead of 'scripts'