There was an interesting little nugget dropped on Hardball last night. With all the speculation around the circumstances surrounding Dick Cheney's shooting of Mr. Whittington, the press has failed to report who the primary "witness" and press liason, Kathryn Armstrong is, who Cheney was keeping company with that weekend and why the Vice President took so damn long in getting his story out.
More after the fold:
The owners of the ranch where Cheney went quail hunting happen to be lobbyists for interests involved with the Iraq war. From last night's Hardball transcript between Chris Matthews and Bob Shrum:
Shrum: The excuse that was given was ridiculous, that they were worried about Mr. Whittington's health. They were all back at the ranch sitting around the table of this lobbyist who represents a company that has contracts in Iraq. This should have been put out right away.
Matthews: Well, what's the relevance to that, Bob?
Shrum: What's the relevance?
Matthews: The fact that this company, the Armstrongs, have a lobbying business that's related to the war in Iraq?
Shrum: Well, I think the other real story here is that Dick Cheney once again was off with his special interest friends. You can go, Oh, but that is the reality. But I think this story has legs for reasons that go beyond that.
Now, if my ears were hearing right, I distinctly remember Shrum saying "They sat around a table for four hours" after the shooting. But it appears nowhere in the transcript.
So we know that Cheney was spending the weekend with lobbyists who have interests in the Iraq War. But now it begs the question, "was he doing business" while on his hunting trip? Did he use taxpayer money for the cost of travel to secretly meet with these lobbyists under the guise of going on a simple hunting expedition? Was the Vice President trying to cover-up who he was meeting and why?