The NYT's coverage of the fallout from Dick Cheney's shooting accident was subtly snarky, especially when it comes to the business connections among those in the "shooting party."
The owner of the ranch is identified in news reports merely as Ann Armstrong, a "prominent Republican supporter and whose family ranch is a familiar destination for Republican politicans." Katharine Armstrong, the hostess of the party, and the distraught lady who was tasked with providing information to the local press, is identified merely as a lobbyist, "with a limited list of lobbying clients in Texas and in Washington" and who said, "I don't believe I've ever lobbied the vice president." Just for good measure, the NYT quotes Katharine, the daughter, as saying none of her clients "that I know of" are involved in Iraq.
But the connections between the Armstrongs, the Bushes, Cheney and Texas royalty are twisted and deep. Maybe the best way of making this intricate web of relationships clearest is by dilineating each family connection.
Ann Armstrong, the "prominent Republican supporter" is actually a prominent Republican functionary, a corporate businesswoman of astonishing breadth and Texas royalty.
Ann Armstrong, the mother, was
the first woman appointed counsellor to the president with Cabinet rank by Presidents Nixon and Ford (1973-1974). After a stint as US ambassador to the Court of Saint James (ie ambassador to Britain), she became
chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1981 to 1990, that is, under Reagan and Bush I, where one of her jobs involved approving covert actions (and given the timing, this would presumably include Contra activities in Central America supervised by George HW Bush). One suspects that Ann knows quite a bit about Bush the elder's adventures in El Salvador and Nicaragua, which have always been suspected of involving cocaine trafficking, if not in Iran, as well. She also is a member of the Seven Revolutions Global Strategy Institute, which tries to project out the structure of the future until 2025 in areas like population, resources, geo-political conflict and economics.
http://7revs.csis.org/http://7revs.csis.org/AdvisoryCommittee/b_armstrong.htmIn later years, mother
Anne has been a member of the boards of directors of many major corporations, including American Express Company, Boise Cascade, General Motors, and
Halliburton Company at the time that it hired Dick Cheney as CEO. In Texas, it seems corporate profits are never enough for the rich, and they must dine at the trough of the public sector, as well. Gov. George W. Bush appointed Ann Armstrong as a regent of Texas A&M University System in 1997 and she is chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees at the Iraq War friendly Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. The trusteeships of Texas public universities and other public boards are infamous as rewards for campaign contributions:
http://www.tpj.org/docs/2000/10/reports/appointments/boards.htmlAnn is married to Texas royalty Tobin Armstrong,
and the couple were "Pioneers" for Bush, meaning that they donated at least $100,000 to the 2000 Bush campaign. It is through this marriage to Tobin that Anne is part owner of the gigantic Armstrong Ranch where the shooting incident occurred.
http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers//pioneers_view.jsp?id=509An earlier marriage in the 1940s, between an elder brother of Tobin and the Tex-Mex Fausto Yturria clan, brought together the Armstrong Ranch owners and the family of owners of the super-gigantic King Ranch. The Yturria family's various real estate holdings, including the 150,000 acre King ranch make them the 58th largest landowners in the United States -- and this does not include their connection to the 50,000 acre Armstrong Ranch.
http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers//pioneers_view.jsp?id=772Katharine, the distraught hostess, is a former investment banker turned lobbyist. She is also the heir apparent of both the Armstrong and King ranches, making her potentially one of the biggest landowners in the country when Mom, Dad and uncle Fausto finally kick the bucket.
Katharine is co-listed with her parents as Pioneers, and this was just around the time that she had been appointed to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission by Gov. George W. Bush in 1999. She turned lobbyist in 2004 claiming a need to make a living to support her children after a divorce.
Among Katharine Armstrong' clients are Parson, an engineering company with contracts in Iraq. She also represents Lockheed Martin the military aircraft behemoth, and Baker Botts, the law firm of super lawyer and
Bush family consigliere James Baker, who oversaw the Bush family 2000 Florida election "strategy."http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=621Now here's the big question. Just what do you think that Katharine Armstrong, representing both aircraft military contractors and Iraq engineering contractors, might have been discussing with Dick Cheney -- despite her claims that she had never formally lobbied Cheney.
Perhaps this is just the way business is done in Texas. After all, long before the shooting, in 2000, father Tobin had acknowledged of his hunting trips with Cheney, “We go out when the dew is still on the grass, and then hunt until we shoot our limit,” ... “Then we pick a fine spot and have a wild game picnic lunch.” If you represent James Baker as a lobbyist, do you really need to "lobby" George W. Bush or Dick Cheney?
Do you really need to "lobby" Dick Cheney when your mother hired him as CEO of Halliburton, which made him a multimilionare? I'm sure that his gratitude is worth millions. It's not lobbying --
just pleasant conversation among long time family friends about current events, developments and opportunities while shooting quail.Could the cover-up of the shooting have as much to do with the embarrassment of poor marksmanship as the embarrassment of disclosure of how business is done among the Bushes, Cheneys, Armstrongs and other well-connected western royalty?
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