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Thursday, February 16, 2006 |
Arianna Huffington: Armstrong Ranch: A GOP Bada Bing?. We've only scratched the surface, but the more we learn about the Armstrong Ranch, site of the Cheney shooting, the more it feels like the GOP equivalent of Tony Soprano's joint, the Bada Bing.
CNN described the remote 50,000-acre Armstrong ranch as "a private getaway." It's the kind of place the goodfellas of the Republican crew can go to kick back, put their feet up, have a beer (or two) with lunch, talk a little business, raise a little money, make a few deals, maybe meet a girl.
Of course, at the Bada Bing the girls are strippers; at Armstrong they're the ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. But both hot spots feature quite a bit of gunplay.
According to Austin American-Statesman reporter Robert Elder, the Armstrong is "a favored destination spot for this type of Republican with social connections, a fair amount of wealth... Certainly if you have access to the vice president or other high level administration officials, corporate officials, it gives you really a unique opportunity to kind of relax, talk, and who knows what happens from there."
Well, Dick Cheney knows. He's been kicking back at Armstrong for over 30 years. Also in the know: President Bush and Laura, Bush 41 and Barbara, Karl Rove, and James Baker, all of whom have been frequent guests at the ranch.
The rest of us can get an idea of "what happens from there" by piecing together some of the very cozy connections between the Armstrong Ranch Mafia.
Take ranch proprietress, shooting eyewitness, and in-a-pinch vice-presidential press secretary Katharine Armstrong, who has parlayed her hunting relationships into a number of well-paying gigs.
For instance, in 1999, back when he was Governor, ranch regular George W. Bush appointed her to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Two years later, she became the Commission's chairman.
In a 2003 interview, the Dallas Morning News asked Armstrong what had she done to "gain an appointment to the TP&W Commission, which is considered one of the plums of gubernatorial appointments?" Replied Armstrong: "I didn't do anything. In fact, I was shocked when Governor Bush's office called me... What Governor Bush told me is that my name just came to him in a 'eureka' moment."
Give her points for honesty: "I didn't do anything." Except hanging out with W, polishing their shotguns, flushing coveys of quail, and bagging their limit. Eureka!
Her bird-hunting bud James Baker has also flushed some lucrative lobbying deals her way. According to NBC News (via Attytood), Baker's law firm Baker Botts paid Armstrong $160,000 in 2004 to lobby the White House. When asked what she did in return for the money, Armstrong told NBC she'd set up a meeting at the White House for a Baker Botts client. She also said that she'd gotten fellow dove-killing enthusiast Karl Rove to speak at a Baker Botts function. Hmm, 160 Gs for setting up a meeting and a Karl Rove speech? Nice work if you can get it.
Of course, Katharine learned how to leverage a shared love of blasting small animals for political advancement the old-fashioned way -- at her mother's cocked elbow. Anne Armstrong first met Dick Cheney when they both worked in the Nixon White House. Soon after, he began visiting the family ranch. In 2000, Anne's late husband Tobin described the idyllic Cheney/Armstrong outings to the AP: "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." Unless we accidentally shoot one of our hunting party in the face. Then we put off the wild game picnic until dinner.
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Anne and Dick seem to have developed a mutual admiration while tromping around the Armstrong ranch, shooting their limit. While Dick was Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff, Anne was appointed ambassador to Great Britain. Anne later returned the favor: she was a member of the Halliburton board when Dick was hired as the company's CEO.
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Put it all together and I think I'm starting to get a better picture of why Dick Cheney was "so confident that Katharine [Armstrong] was the right one" and "an excellent choice" to put the shooting story out.
Â
Eureka! And bada bing!
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2:59:20 PM 
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Arianna Huffington: Armstrong Ranch: A GOP Bada Bing?. We've only scratched the surface, but the more we learn about the Armstrong Ranch, site of the Cheney shooting, the more it feels like the GOP equivalent of Tony Soprano's joint, the Bada Bing.
CNN described the remote 50,000-acre Armstrong ranch as "a private getaway." It's the kind of place the goodfellas of the Republican crew can go to kick back, put their feet up, have a beer (or two) with lunch, talk a little business, raise a little money, make a few deals, maybe meet a girl.
Of course, at the Bada Bing the girls are strippers; at Armstrong they're the ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. But both hot spots feature quite a bit of gunplay.
According to Austin American-Statesman reporter Robert Elder, the Armstrong is "a favored destination spot for this type of Republican with social connections, a fair amount of wealth... Certainly if you have access to the vice president or other high level administration officials, corporate officials, it gives you really a unique opportunity to kind of relax, talk, and who knows what happens from there."
Well, Dick Cheney knows. He's been kicking back at Armstrong for over 30 years. Also in the know: President Bush and Laura, Bush 41 and Barbara, Karl Rove, and James Baker, all of whom have been frequent guests at the ranch.
The rest of us can get an idea of "what happens from there" by piecing together some of the very cozy connections between the Armstrong Ranch Mafia.
Take ranch proprietress, shooting eyewitness, and in-a-pinch vice-presidential press secretary Katharine Armstrong, who has parlayed her hunting relationships into a number of well-paying gigs.
For instance, in 1999, back when he was Governor, ranch regular George W. Bush appointed her to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Two years later, she became the Commission's chairman.
In a 2003 interview, the Dallas Morning News asked Armstrong what had she done to "gain an appointment to the TP&W Commission, which is considered one of the plums of gubernatorial appointments?" Replied Armstrong: "I didn't do anything. In fact, I was shocked when Governor Bush's office called me... What Governor Bush told me is that my name just came to him in a 'eureka' moment."
Give her points for honesty: "I didn't do anything." Except hanging out with W, polishing their shotguns, flushing coveys of quail, and bagging their limit. Eureka!
Her bird-hunting bud James Baker has also flushed some lucrative lobbying deals her way. According to NBC News (via Attytood), Baker's law firm Baker Botts paid Armstrong $160,000 in 2004 to lobby the White House. When asked what she did in return for the money, Armstrong told NBC she'd set up a meeting at the White House for a Baker Botts client. She also said that she'd gotten fellow dove-killing enthusiast Karl Rove to speak at a Baker Botts function. Hmm, 160 Gs for setting up a meeting and a Karl Rove speech? Nice work if you can get it.
Of course, Katharine learned how to leverage a shared love of blasting small animals for political advancement the old-fashioned way -- at her mother's cocked elbow. Anne Armstrong first met Dick Cheney when they both worked in the Nixon White House. Soon after, he began visiting the family ranch. In 2000, Anne's late husband Tobin described the idyllic Cheney/Armstrong outings to the AP: "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." Unless we accidentally shoot one of our hunting party in the face. Then we put off the wild game picnic until dinner.
Â
Anne and Dick seem to have developed a mutual admiration while tromping around the Armstrong ranch, shooting their limit. While Dick was Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff, Anne was appointed ambassador to Great Britain. Anne later returned the favor: she was a member of the Halliburton board when Dick was hired as the company's CEO.
Â
Put it all together and I think I'm starting to get a better picture of why Dick Cheney was "so confident that Katharine [Armstrong] was the right one" and "an excellent choice" to put the shooting story out.
Â
Eureka! And bada bing!
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2:58:02 PM
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As the New York Times reports that "top political appointees in the NASA press office exerted strong pressure during the 2004 presidential campaign to cut the flow of news releases" on global warming and other sensitive topics, the Wall Street Journal cites NOAA scientists as saying that "the agency has begun keeping closer tabs on their comments to journalists," with public affairs "minders" sitting in on more interviews. [Cursor.org]
2:43:12 PM
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James Moore: The News Is What They Say It Is. "Gather the facts as quickly as you can. And then distort them at your leisure."
Mark Twain
The truth always disappears a little at a time. But in the era of the Bush administration we often are given the opportunity to watch it vanish before our eyes. This happens without many of us even being aware of the loss. The latest vanishing acts were on ABC News Nightline and FOX News. But you have to pay close attention to notice the absence.
When Terry Moran anchored Nightline's report Wednesday, the program led, naturally, with the Brit Hume interview of Vice President Dick Cheney. The show's reputation, acquired during Ted Koppel's able tenure, was to go after the facts with relentlessness. Moran's piece on Cheney was more of an insipid feature story about a beleaguered public servant who had been sorely wronged by the countrymen and media he was trying lead. And he was now, graciously, opening up to his constituents.
"It was," Moran's saccharine-laced voice intoned, "a different side of Dick Cheney," which, I suppose, we were all getting to see. Neither Moran nor his producers bothered to mention the conservative, Republican tenor of FOX News as a possible reason that the vice president chose the network. Cheney need not worry about getting grilled over the varying versions of events when he was sitting across from the admittedly conservative Hume. Instead, the VP got a venue where he struggled to show he was empathetic and almost, but not quite, sorry. The near miss to actual reporting was when Hume dared to ask a question about drinking.
But what about all the others that never got asked? "Mr. Vice President, can you reconcile Katharine Armstrong's varying explanations of what she did or didn't see? First, she said that Harry Whittington didn't alert you that he was behind him and that it was his fault for that reason. But she later said she was 100 yards away sitting in a pickup truck. She couldn't have heard him from that distance. She also said she saw Mr. Whittington fall but later said the first thing she knew something had happened was when she saw your medical team racing toward him. What the hell is true and what isn't, Mr. Vice President? If Ms. Armstrong is so inconsistent with information, why'd you trust her to talk to reporters? And do you think that if you weren't the vice president, and you discharged a shotgun and sent someone to the hospital, that the police would have let you get away with not talking to them until 16 hours, the next morning?"
None of that from Brit Hume, though. Mostly, we got a lot of, "How did you feel?" questions from the FOX anchor. And Nightline, which had hours and hours to seek out alternative sources for questions to be raised in its own reporting, in many respects, failed even more miserably. The piece that Moran narrated asked no real questions about what had transpired on the Armstrong Ranch and, when it sought out reaction, ABC's producers managed to round up two sympathetic Republican operatives, Ed Rollins and Tori Clarke. Unchallenged by Moran or the producers who conducted the interviews, they both spent their respective on camera time minimizing the VP's failure to act responsibly and their confidence in how little of a political effect it would have on the White House and the GOP. The piece concluded by leaving viewers with a departing thought delivered by Clarke, who admonished that the Democrats would be making a mistake by trying to utilize the incident for their political advantage.
What in the hell happened to objectivity, or at least its pretense? Were there no Democrats or any other skeptics in Washington that Nightline might have interviewed? No critics available on deadline? The tone of the entire Moran piece was that of an apologia from both the network and Cheney. The VP was, of course, forced into his acknowledgement but ABC willingly leaned over to polish his boots for the appearance on FOX.
Songwriter John Prine might have been right long ago. It's time to "blow up your TV, move to the country...." Ted Koppel has left the building. The demographers and the marketeers are in charge.
And for now, we are acting like unwitting consumers.
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11:35:01 AM
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Cenk Uygur: What if Cheney Wasn't the Shooter?. On the fifth day of the cover-up we get into speculation I'm not sure I even believe. But the less the Vice President answers, the more questions we have. This hypothesis seems a little unlikely, but it's still significantly more likely than the official story - and certainly a question worth asking:
What if Cheney wasn't the shooter?
Here's an excerpt from the Vice President's "interview" today with Brit Hume:
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, probably 10 people. We weren't all
together, but about 10 guests at the ranch. There were three of us who
had gotten out of the vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had
been pointed by the dogs. Covey is flushed, we've shot, and each of us
got a bird. Harry couldn't find his, it had gone down in some deep
cover, and so he went off to look for it. The other hunter and I then
turned and walked about a hundred yards in another direction --
Q Away from him?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Away from him -- where another covey had been
spotted by an outrider. I was on the far right --
Q There was just two of you then?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just two of us at that point.
So, has anyone asked if it might have been the "other hunter" who actually shot Harry Whittington? It's clear that Katharine Armstrong didn't actually see the shooting. She said that she was first worried that the Vice President had a heart attack when she saw people rushing towards the scene. That doesn't sound like someone who saw the Vice President shooting someone else.
The "other hunter" is Pamela Willeford, former ambassador to Switzerland, and current companion to Dick Cheney on this weekend getaway. She was apparently his "hunting partner."
Now, I am clearly not the first person to suggest that the Vice President might have been hunting a little more than quail with Pamela Willeford. For the record, I'm not even really suggesting it, I'm just offering up a possibility - a possibility that has gained more credence because of Cheney's cult of secrecy. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
But what's clear is that Willeford's name didn't arouse much attention until the fourth day of the cover-up. Now imagine the kind of attention she would have received if she was the shooter.
There would have been a lot of questions directed at her. Who is she? What was she doing there? Why is the Vice President on a weekend get together with this woman? What is the history of their friendship?
A lot of news story have described the 28 gauge shotgun as a smaller, less powerful gun. Some have called it a woman's gun. What if it was? What if Willeford was less experienced with a gun or if she was the one that was drinking a little too much?
It's possible that the only thing more damaging than the Vice President shooting someone might be his mistress shooting someone. I know this is terrible. Sheer speculation. How dare I? I'm a bad, bad man.
None of these questions would have even come up if all of the evidence were turned over to the sheriff's office right away. If the Vice President and the "other hunter" had talked to the authorities that night and undergone breathalyzer's tests, then there would be no doubt. Is the Vice President not savvy enough to realize this? Of course, he is. Then, it is perfectly natural to ask what he was trying to hide in the meanwhile.
Has anyone ever even looked at the guns the two hunters on the scene were carrying? Which one was the shooter's gun? Whose fingerprints were on it? Where did they shoot it from? Where did Mr. Whittington get shot?
Who had gun residue on them that matched the Whittington shot? Monica's blue dress got Bill Clinton in trouble. Would Willeford's orange hunting vest done the same for Cheney?
It's possible that the least damaging story is the one where the Vice President simply made an honest mistake during the hunt. It's possible that the most damaging story in politics is always the sex scandal. It's one thing to shoot a guy, but God forbid you should be sleeping around. Especially, after all you said about Bill Clinton.
In some ways, Dick Cheney better hope it was him who shot Harry Whittington. Otherwise, he might be in bigger trouble than he already is.
UPDATE: I just read RJ's piece where Tucker Carlson confronted him with the "fact" that Willeford's husband was also on the ranch. First of all that's pretty kinky, Dicky. Second of all, how do we know they didn't chopper the dude in after the quail hit the fan? Third of all, this theory was fun while it lasted -- which by the way was a record low one and a half minutes.
Nonetheless, it proves the point that it is always better to be upfront than it is to hide facts -- it only gets you in bigger trouble and causes more speculation about what's actually happening. So, you see how I was right while I was wrong. And it didn't even take me five days to admit it.
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10:39:21 AM
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Steve Clemons: Can Cheney be His Own Declassification Machine?. 
In my view, the law says "No". . .but I have little doubt Alberto Gonzales and his minions will construct a rationale that says otherwise.
But I have run across some interesting information -- and have some questions that we should all pose to those at the helm in the White House.
Executive Order 12958 on "Classified National Security Information" was promulgated by President Clinton on April 17, 1995.
This Executive Order "prescribes a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information."
In this 1995 Executive Order, the VICE PRESIDENT is mentioned only one time -- and only in such a way that the automatic, 25-year declassification of historically important documents can be preempted if declassification would "impair the ability of responsible United States Government officials to protect the President, the Vice President, and other individuals."
Now, let's move to the March 25, 2003 Executive Order by President Bush, No. 13292, that amends President Clinton's Executive Order on National Security Information.
The Vice President's "presence" in the Executive Order increased by 1000%. Instead of just one mention in the Executive Order, Cheney's office is referred to eleven times.
This hyping of Cheney's and his staff's role in the management of secrets is a further testament to the historically unique power that Cheney's vice-presidency amassed in the period after 9/11/2001.
Briefly, in the amended Executive Order, Dick Cheney and presumably future VPs are affected by this National Security Information presidential order in the following ways:
1. The Vice President, in the context of his duties, has the authority to "classify" information;
2. The Vice President, in the context of his duties, can give a "top secret" classification to information;
3. The Vice President can give a "secret" or "confidential" classification to information;
4. Like in the previous 1995 Executive Order, the automatic, 25-year declassification of national security information can be preempted if it would impair the ability to "protect" the Vice President from physical harm;
5. Mandatory declassification review (by a designated process) is required of information originating from the Vice President;
6. Mandatory declassification review is required from the Vice President's staff;
7. Access to certain national security information can be provided to individuals who occupied policy-making positions appointed by the Vice President (or President of course)
8. Rules barring access to certain classified national security information will be waived for the Vice President;
9. Waivers to rules of access to classified national security information will only apply to Vice Presidential appointees in areas of their policy work while working as an Executive Branch appointee;
10. This mention of the VP only relates to the above line saying that access to classified national security information will only be provided to Presdidential and Vice Presidential appointees in the area of his or her policy work that was done during the tenure of that respective President or Vice President;
11. "'Original classification authority' means an individual authorized in writing, either by the President, the Vice President in the performance of executive duties. . ." This is a definitional item in the Executive Order.
There is NOTHING HERE that indicates that the Vice President has any embedded authority to be a declassification machine unto himself.
This matter is important because Vice Presdident Cheney slipped into his interview with Brit Hume yesterday his belief that he has the ability to declassify national security information -- and implying that there is an Executive Order that allows him to do it.
Here is the exchange:
Q Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: There is an executive order to that effect.
Q There is.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q Have you done it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order --
Q You ever done it unilaterally?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President.
Vice President Cheney is right that he has the ability to classify materials; that is clear from the Executive Order.
It is also clear, however, that the rules and processes for CLASSIFYING national security information are completely different than DECLASSIFYING information. That is evident from reading the structure of the Executive Order itself.
So, Cheney is engaged in Executive Branch over-reach again, implying he has a power that is not designated.
This is the issue that the nation should be focused on -- and in my view, it is far more important than Cheney's hunting accident and even his obsession with making the White House opaque to this country's citizens.
If Cheney authorized Scooter Libby to leak classified national security secrets, then Cheney broke the law and should be investigated. GOP presidential hopeful George Allen agrees.
One lucid observer shared with me the thought this morning that there may, in fact, be "classified" aspects to the March 2003 Executive Order that we mere members of the public are not privy too.
But let's warn the White House now: Secret Orders that give the President or Vice President secret new powers are not consistent in any way with democracy and this nation's heritage.
I doubt that the authority to classify or declassify information would have been issued in a secret way -- as it is clear that one of the purposes of the 2003 Executive Order amendment was to give Vice President Cheney and his office much more presence in the management of secrets -- and the White House wanted to make VP Cheney's role overt, not hidden.
Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note, and posts frequent commentary on Huffington Post. Clemons is also Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation.
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10:35:09 AM
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Karen Kwiatkowski: Cheney Latest Chapter (and Verse). Our man Dick has had a life changing experience. For the first time in his life, he's shot a man. As Cheney shared publicly just four days later, there was no time for an 6th deferment. He'll never forget the in-the-moment exhilaration of shooting at flushed quail transformed into stark emotional shock and fear of realizing he just shot, maybe killed a guy. The man who epitomizes "The Man" has now become one. Almost.
Sure, he didn't follow all the normal procedures relating to a hunting accident investigation, and he doesn't have to. A coverup? I suspect it never occurred to Cheney. I mean, he did nothing wrong. Sh^% happens. At least Nixon was worried about people finding out what he was doing.
The Bushco chorus is as right as rain. The White House Press Corps is indeed angry and betrayed. I mean, they throw nothing but softballs, hold stories of national and legal interest for years on end, back-page the serious issues, and as a group, secretly share the Bush-Cheney lust for war and more bloody war. The payback for this eternal prostration, devotion and shared values is the occasional offering by the administration of a non-story, that in its sheer glossy inanity will sell a few papers. But noooooooooooo, Cheney decides to break this juiciest of non-stories through a local reporter.
It is enough to make you go nuts. A student of mine from years ago sent me some Cheney inspired poetry. He is a former bartender and a former Republican who, in his own words, "prefers getting mad to going mad."
It is accompanied by the music of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues...
Yeah, I'm a manly hunter. Hey, dig my bright orange vest.
But my buddy now has birdshot in his face and neck and chest.
I shot a man in Texas as the quail did fly.
We were gonna keep it secret-- turns out he didn't die.
When I am on vacation down on some crony's ranch
we start each day with cocktails. Make mine bourbon, splash of branch. We never hunt when sober-- that would be a drag. Let's just say it's more than quarry that's halfway in the bag.
Break
I didn't have a license. Don't need no stinkin' stamp.
My power is unitary. You may not my style cramp.
I rang up Judge Scalia (he'd not come along.)
Ex officio, he told me, I could do no wrong.
Break
I like my monthly outings. The next trip that I take
I'm callin' up Phil Spector and maybe Robert Blake.
They say that O.J. Simpson is handy with a knife.
If we're lucky we'll get through it without the loss of life.
Brilliant, and hilarious -- written by a former Republican, sent to a former Republican. Our dear America is contaminated with concentrated power, abuse of same, arrogance, cowardice and criminality in Washington. This banality infects both major parties, as Iraq veteran and former senatorial candidate Paul Hackett can attest. But it is the common regular people in this country who refuse to go mad, who trust their own eyes and their own judgment, and aren't afraid to say so who will take back the place.
May Cheney's victims, whether Mr. Whittington, American rule of law, our faded Constitution and several modern foreign countries, recover and eventually return to their natural state of health and autonomy. Meanwhile, about the only thing true patriots can do is write poetry, laugh, grit their teeth and shake their heads.
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10:31:32 AM
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Joshuah Bearman: Fox Floats Cheney's Trial Balloon. Did anyone catch Brit Hume and Cheney working together to roll out an early foundation for Cheney's defense for outing -- or rather "declassifying" -- Valerie Plame's status? (Courtesy Ice House Gang.) This exchange, irrelevant to Cheney's hunting accident, came right at the close of the interview:
Q: Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: There is an executive order to that effect.
Q: There is.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q: Have you done it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order --
Q: You ever done it unilaterally?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President.
Q: There have been two leaks, one that pertained to possible facilities in Europe; and another that pertained to this NSA matter. There are officials who have had various characterizations of the degree of damage done by those. How would you characterize the damage done by those two reports?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: There clearly has been damage done.
Q: Which has been the more harmful, in your view?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into just sort of ranking them, then you get into why is one more damaging than the other. One of the problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets. And it costs us, in terms of our relationship with other governments, in terms of the willingness of other intelligence services to work with us, in terms of revealing sources and methods. And all of those elements enter into some of these leaks.
Q: Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for blah, blah, etc.
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10:25:32 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.
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