Sunday, February 19, 2006

The South Texas Ranch Where Politicians Roam



More than a century before it became the scene of a vice presidential hunting accident, this humble stretch of property had connections to another gun incident.

On a manhunt in 1877, a hard-bitten Texas ranger named John B. Armstrong captured the notorious outlaw John Wesley Hardin after what the officer later described in a telegram back home as a "lively shooting" aboard a train in Florida. The capture made a hero of Mr. Armstrong, who bought a 50,000-acre plot from the owners of an old Spanish land grant using, according to one account, the $4,000 reward from the capture of the notorious gunman. When Mr. Armstrong died there in 1913, the land passed down to his heirs and soon was known by the family name.

Vice President Cheney's mishap on the property last weekend drew the curtain back on a place that has become a quiet destination for the powerful, rivaling Hyannisport, Kennebunkport and the Hamptons as a setting where important relationships have been nurtured. The rise of the Armstrong Ranch, and its even larger and more famous neighbor next door, the King Ranch, is as much a story of the rise of the Republican party in Texas, and George W. Bush as it is about the Armstrong family itself.

Over the last five decades, the Republican pilgrimage to the Armstrong Ranch has become a familiar ritual, dating back to the 1950's, when John Armstrong's descendant Tobin and his wife, Anne, first became active in Republican politics, putting them at the center of a small circle in a time when most Texans were still yellow dog Democrats. The South Texas property became a meeting place for rising political figures.

Now their children — including their daughter Katharine, who called her local newspaper to disclose the vice president's shooting of Harry M. Whittington — have inherited the perch. And even though Tobin Armstrong died at age 82 last year, invitations to the Armstrong Ranch remain sacred in Republican circles in the state — and are almost sure to remain so in the days ahead despite the site's recent infamy.

"When you say, 'I've been hunting with the Armstrongs,' or 'I've been down on the Armstrong Ranch,' that implies a certain level of status and insiderness," said Harvey Kronberg, the editor of The Quorum Report, the statewide political news publication. "The ranch itself is kind of a rite of passage for Texas Republicans. You go pay homage."

And many have paid their respects over the years — the Bushes and the Cheneys, Karl Rove, James A. Baker III, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry, have all been cited as participating in hunting trips or other social functions at the Armstrong Ranch. Mr. Cheney, in his one interview after the accident, made certain to note that Mr. Rove has also hunted there, declaring that both he and Mr. Rove are "good friends of the Armstrongs."

"If it could ever be said that a man could walk with kings yet keep the common touch, it was Tobin Armstrong," Mr. Cheney said at the funeral, according to the accounts at the time. The first lady, Laura Bush, also attended; three years earlier, when the British queen mother died, Anne and Tobin Armstrong accompanied Mrs. Bush as part of the United States delegation.

Ranches and power have gone hand in hand in Texas political history. The state's huge ranches — particularly the biggest, the South Texas ones — were patterned closely on the patron culture of the great Spanish ranches, with a landowner acting as almost a local sovereign, controlling the lives of the workers in his charge and deferred to in social and cultural matters, large and small.

The political power of the Texas ranches persisted into the 20th century. Representative Richard Kleberg came from the family that owned the King Ranch and was a powerhouse in Congress in the 1930's and 40's.

In the late 40's, opponents of young Lyndon B. Johnson accused him of stealing a United States Senate election by using the South Texas political bosses who were controlled by the ranch owners, something that Johnson always denied.

"Back in the '40's, Lyndon Johnson could still steal a Senate election in South Texas with the help of the big patrons," said Calvin Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

"But what happened is, in the late 60's and early 70's, is the feds came in and threw some people in handcuffs, along with some of the bosses of those South Texas counties, and it cleaned up a lot," he said. "But you notice, even today, you can still call the local sheriff and say, 'We've had an accident out on the ranch, not to worry, it's under control,' and the sheriff says, 'Yes ma'am, I'll drive out in the morning and we'll piece this thing together.' There's still a deference to the ranch owners that would astound most Americans."

If, in recent decades, the Armstrongs have been more politically connected than the other big, old ranch families, this is due in part to their personalities and to their overriding passion for transforming the Republican Party into a political force in Texas. But it is also because — unlike the Armstrong Ranch, which continued to be a family-run enterprise — many of the other big ranches, including the King Ranch, diversified into agribusiness conglomerates.

The Armstrongs derived their initial influence simply by being there: They were as close to aristocracy as the state had ever known, and became more so in 1944, when Tobin's brother married into the King family, whose adjacent ranch added even more wealth and prominence to the family.

Tobin Armstrong, who spent 48 years as the head of a prominent cattle industry association, married his wife, Anne, in 1950, and the pair spent the next five decades financing Republican candidates and serving in Republican administrations.

Mr. Armstrong had close ties to then Gov. Bill Clements, the first Republican to win the Texas Statehouse since Reconstruction — and whose campaign in 1978 was worked on by a young political operative named Karl Rove. When Mr. Rove opened his direct-mail consulting firm, Karl Rove & Company, beginning his career, it was with financial support from Mr. Armstrong.

By many accounts Mrs. Armstrong, the matriarch, was as much of a driving force in politics as her husband. A New Orleans native, from a wealthy family of her own, she was named counselor to President Richard Nixon. President Gerald Ford, for whom Mr. Cheney served as chief of staff, appointed her United States ambassador to Britain in 1976. In more recent years, she served on the boards of American Express and Halliburton, the energy company of which Mr. Cheney was chief executive before becoming vice president.

The family's relationship with George W. Bush is equally apparent: When he was governor of Texas, Mr. Bush appointed Mrs. Armstrong as a regent of Texas A & M, and made her daughter Katharine a member of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission; she later became the chairwoman. She also became a lobbyist, and her clients include Mr. Baker's law firm, Baker Botts. Lobbying records show that Ms. Armstrong made at least $760,000 lobbying for clients in Washington in 2004 and 2005, and at least $300,000 working for four separate clients in Texas during that same period.

In the 2000 presidential cycle, both Katharine Armstrong and her parents were listed as Bush campaign "pioneers," fund-raisers who attracted $100,000 in donations for the Republican team.

As the family's influence rose, "going down to the Armstrong Ranch" became a phrase heard in Republican and Bush administration circles, conjuring up images of party luminaries gathering, as they did last weekend, for intimate weekends away.

"These are the deep pocket people, and that's the ancient tradition of the region," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Austin. "It's just the way big money operators wield influence."

Mr. Buchanan added: "Here in Texas they just happen to use ranches. Up on the East Coast they use boats."

This peak into the South Texas political culture of the South Texas ranch country was brought to you via the New York Times.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney Shoots Texas Millionaire

By LYNN BREZOSKY / Associated Press

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was in stable condition in the intensive care unit of a Corpus Christi hospital on Sunday, according to Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System.

The incident occurred Saturday at a ranch in south Texas where the vice president and two companions were hunting quail. It was not reported publicly by the vice president's office for nearly 24 hours, and then only after the incident was reported locally by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Katharine Armstrong, the ranch's owner, said Sunday that Cheney was using a 28-guage shotgun and that Whittington was about 30 yards away when he was hit in the cheek, neck and chest.

The rest of the AP story here.

Republican Speaks Up, Leading Others to Challenge Wiretaps

When Representative Heather A. Wilson broke ranks with President Bush on Tuesday to declare her "serious concerns" about domestic eavesdropping, she gave voice to what some fellow Republicans were thinking, if not saying.

Attention in N.S.A. Debate Turns to Telecom Industry (February 11, 2006) Now they are speaking up — and growing louder.

In interviews over several days, Congressional Republicans have expressed growing doubts about the National Security Agency program to intercept international communications inside the United States without court warrants. A growing number of Republicans say the program appears to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that created a court to oversee such surveillance, and are calling for revamping the FISA law.

Ms. Wilson and at least six other Republican lawmakers are openly skeptical about Mr. Bush's assertion that he has the inherent authority to order the wiretaps and that Congress gave him the power to do so when it authorized him to use military force after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The White House, in a turnabout, briefed the full House and Senate Intelligence Committee on the program this week, after Ms. Wilson, chairwoman of the subcommittee that oversees the N.S.A., had called for a full-scale Congressional investigation. But some Republicans say that is not enough.

The rest of the story.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Army Effort to Enlist Hispanics Draws Recruits, and Criticism

Lizette Alvarez
NY Times

As Sgt. First Class Gavino Barron, dressed in a crisp Army uniform, trawls the Wal-Mart here for recruits, past stacks of pillows and towers of detergent, he is zeroing-in on one of the Army's "special missions": to increase the number of Hispanic enlisted soldiers.

He approaches a couple of sheepish looking teenage boys in the automotive aisle and seamlessly slides into Spanish, letting loose his pitch: "Have you ever thought about joining the Army?" "Did you know you can get up to $40,000 in bonuses?" "I'm from Mexico, too. Michoacán."

In Denver and other cities where the Hispanic population is growing, recruiting Latinos has become one of the Army's top priorities. From 2001 to 2005, the number of Latino enlistments in the Army rose 26 percent, and in the military as a whole, the increase was 18 percent.

The increase comes at a time when the Army is struggling to recruit new soldiers and when the enlistment of African-Americans, a group particularly disillusioned with the war in Iraq, has dropped off sharply, to 14.5 percent from 22.3 percent over the past four years.

Here is the rest of the story.

Bush Education Panel Exploring Standardized Tests for Colleges

A higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining whether standardized testing should be expanded into universities and colleges to prove that students are learning and to allow easier comparisons on quality.

Charles Miller, a business executive who is the commission's chairman, wrote in a memorandum recently to the 18 other members that he saw a developing consensus over the need for more accountability in higher education.

"What is clearly lacking is a nationwide system for comparative performance purposes, using standard formats," Mr. Miller wrote, adding that student learning was a main component that should be measured.

Mr. Miller was head of the Regents of the University of Texas a few years ago when they directed the university's nine campuses to use standardized tests to prove students were learning. He points to the test being tried there and to two other testing initiatives as evidence that assessment of writing, analytical skills and critical thinking is possible.

Here is the rest of the story from the NY Times.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Boehner Wins Majority Leader Race Replacing DeLay


WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Representative John Boehner, an eight-term Congressman from far west Ohio, defeated Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri today in a stunning upset to succeed Tom DeLay as the House Republican majority leader.

Mr. Boehner received 122 votes to 109 for Mr. Blunt in a runoff made necessary by an inconclusive first ballot. The victory for Mr. Boehner signaled that many House Republicans are uneasy about the lobbying scandals that threaten to tar some of their party colleagues and wanted far more change than Mr. Blunt seemed to promise.

The first ballot ended inconclusively, with Mr. Blunt earning 110 votes, Mr. Boehner 79 and Representative John Shadegg of Arizona 40. Representative Jim Ryun of Kansas, the world-class miler of the 1960's, got two votes.

Mr. Shadegg and Mr. Ryun, who had not been an announced candidate for the post, then withdrew, leaving Mr. Boehner and Mr. Blunt to battle for a majority. There are 231 Republicans in the House, so 116 votes were needed for victory.

The rest of the NY Times story is here.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

FOX News: Bush Reinforces State of the Union Ideals in the Heartland



Here is a different perspective on President Bush's State of the Union. FOX News' point of view is certainly different from that of Ms. Sheehan. Just trying to be "Fair and Balanced."

Cindy Sheehan in Her Own Words


Cindy Sheehan in her own words.