Overview: On Saturday, 11 February 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow hunter in pursuit of quail on a south Texas plantation in Kenedy County (near the Mexican border and the Gulf of Mexico). The closest metro area is Corpus Christi.
Katherine Armstrong - IDed as "Ranch Owner": A Bush Pioneer in her own right, Katherine (heir to two of the largest ranches in Texas) is the daughter of Pioneer Tobin (Cheney delivered his eulogy) and Anne Armstrong (former advisor to Nixon and Halliburton director when the firm hired Cheney). The quail shoot occurred on the 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch. All three have been invited to overnight at the White House. Katherine has lobbied the White House on agricultural and other issues. Turbin financed Karl Rove & Co.
Pam Willeford - US Ambassador: Texan Willeford became Ambassador to Switzerland in 2003 when Mercer Reynolds III "stepped down to serve as finance chairman of Bush's reelection campaign." Then-Governor Bush also appointed her to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. She told the Austin Statesman that the sun was setting behind Whittington, perhaps contributing to the shooting. Her daughter was made deputy chief of staff to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 2005.
Harry Whittington - Victim and Lawyer: The Austin Statesman calls the 78-year-old attorney one of the founders of the modern Republican Party in Texas. He is a millionaire landowner in Travis County (Austin) who donates to the Republican Party. Molly Ivins calls him a "liberal" Republican, noting his tenure on the Texas Board of Corrections. Cheney called him "an acquaintance" in his FOX interview; news reports characterize the two men as "friends."
Dick Cheney - Shooter and VP: Vice President Cheney has long connections with the Armstrong family, although he called Whittington "an acquaintance" on his FOX interview, conducted four days after the shooting. He stonewalled both law enforcement and media overnight, bypassing any blood alcohol tests. His more infamous "hunting" trip occurred in 2003 in Pennsylvania, where he and eight others bagged more than 400 "tame" pheasants (birds raised explicitly to release for hunters to shoot).
Dr. David Blanchard: Blanchard is director of emergency services at Corpus Christi Memorial and appears to also be Vice Chair of World Hope International, a Christian evangelical aid group. He did not correct the medical impossibility articulated by hospital administrator Peter Banko at a joint press conference: Banko suggested gunshot travelled through a vein to cause a silent heart attack. The day before, Blanchard had described the post-shooting recovery as "text book" with no complications.
Unnamed Medical Personnel: An unknown number of unnamed "medical personnel" accompanying the vice president reportedly provided first aid at the scene. These same doctors elected to send Whittington to the local hospital via ambulence, rather than helicopter. After the hour-long trip, the local hospital rushed him via MediVac to the trauma center in Corpus Christi.
Postscript: From Sidney Blumenthal: " The curiosities surrounding the vice president's accident have created a contemporary version of 'The Rules of the Game' with a Texas twist. In [the] film, politicians and aristocrats mingle at a country house in France over a long weekend, during which a merciless hunt ends with a tragic shooting. [It] depicted a hypocritical, ruthless and decadent ruling class that made its own rules and led a society to the edge of catastrophe."
