To: Skywatcher who wrote (53624 ) 2/12/2006 4:13:21 PM From: American Spirit Respond to of 93284 Here is a description of Cheney's fat cat rancher host. This is the world GW Bush and Cheney live in, and the kind of old guard velitists they really serve. "The Armstrong Ranch has since gone global, with tracts in Australia and South America. In recent years, Tobin and his wife, Anne, have hosted many GOP dignitaries--including the first and second President Bush--on their 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch in South Texas. “We go out when the dew is still on the grass, and then hunt until we shoot our limit,” Tobin said in 2000 of his ranch outings with Dick Cheney. “Then we pick a fine spot and have a wild game picnic lunch.” True conservatives might choke on their javelina steaks if they knew that Tobin Armstrong dunned the government for $11,336 in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2002, according to the Environmental Working Group. Anne Armstrong served as: a close advisor to President Nixon; President Ford’s British Ambassador; and approved covert actions on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Reagan. A veteran of blue-chip corporate boards, Anne Armstrong was a Halliburton director when that corporation hired Cheney. She is Kay Bailey Hutchison’s best friend, having helped launch the senator’s career as Republican National Committee co-chair in 1971. George W. Bush appointed Anne Armstrong as a Texas A&M regent in 1997. She and her husband were part of Laura Bush’s delegation to the funeral of Queen Mother Elizabeth in 2002. As a Kenedy County Commissioner in 2001, Tobin Armstrong expressed serious reservations about a short-lived Bush administration plan to relocate a Navy bomb-testing site from Puerto Rico to the fragile sand dunes of a local beach. Daughter Katharine Armstrong--formerly Katherine Idsal--and ex-son-in-law Warren Idsal also are Pioneers. President Bush invited Tobin, Anne and Katharine Armstrong to a White House sleepover.