Architect Of Vast Right Wing Conspiracy "Reassesses" Hillary

"To Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Richard Mellon Scaife qualifies as a charter member of the 'vast right-wing conspiracy,'" the New York Times notes, "having bankrolled an elaborate multimillion-dollar campaign throughout the 1990s to unearth damaging information about the couple."

But in a striking about-face, Mr. Scaife now says he has changed his mind -- at least about one half of the duo.

"I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today," he wrote in an opinion article published Sunday, amid her campaign for president. "And it's a very favorable one indeed."

His sudden conversion from fervid Clinton basher to lukewarm Clinton fan occurred after Mrs. Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York, sat down for a 90-minute interview with reporters and editors of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper owned by Mr. Scaife, the billionaire heir to the Mellon banking fortune.

Here's a taste of Scaife's op-ed:

Walking into our conference room, not knowing what to expect (or even, perhaps, expecting the worst), took courage and confidence. Not many politicians have political or personal courage today, so it was refreshing to see her exhibit both.

Sen. Clinton also exhibited an impressive command of many of today's most pressing domestic and international issues. Her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on.

Particularly regarding foreign policy, she identified what we consider to be the most important challenges and dangers that the next president must confront and resolve in order to guarantee our nation's security. Those include an increasingly hostile Russia, an increasingly powerful China and increasing instability in Pakistan and South America.

Like me, she believes we must pull our troops out of Iraq, because it is time for Iraqis to handle their own destiny -- and, more important, because it is past time to end the toll on our soldiers there, to begin rebuilding our military, and to refocus our attention on other threats, starting with Afghanistan.

On domestic policy, Sen. Clinton and I might find more areas on which we disagree. Yet we also agree on others. Asked about the utter failure of federal efforts to rebuild New Orleans since the Katrina disaster, for example, she called it just what it has been -- "not just a national disgrace (but) an international embarrassment."

Comments

[athy]

Does anyone have anymore questions about Sen Clinton's diplomacy skills?
And no...I don't think she has had to sell her soul to the devil... especially not after what this man tried to do to her husband...

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

Your logic seems contradictory.

[dax49]

this from a man who's own aunt refers to him as a "gutter drunk". i read that kristol can kiss his ass from three miles away

[bakossi]

This certainly wouldn't be an endorsement I was proud of, but it defintely fits with her PA surrogate calling Fox News the most fair and balanced news network, her sponorship of a punitive bankruptcy bill and Constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning, her support of the Iraq war and NAFTA (until it became politically problematic) and every free trade agreement put before her (without labor and environmental conditions), and her membership in a shadowy right-wing religious cult that has an unhealthy fascination with the Nazis.

[Zipperupus]

I find this to be the most appalling political news item in a recent string of atrocities.

Hillary Clinton reaching out to make bedfellows with the same organization that implicated her in the death of Vince Foster... the same group that promoted whitewater, filegate, troopergate, that insinuated Bill Clinton was a drug-runner, that has said worse things about Chelsea Clinton than MSNBC could legally say...

The same group that Joe Conason and Gene Lyons outed in "The Hunting of the President," one of the finest works of investigative journalism in over thirty years.

this is not reaching across the aisle... this is a total sell out. Obama went before Chicago newspapers to address the Rezko issue and got a clean bill of health. What is Hillary doing except trying to find common ground with the man who funded a black op program to put her and her husband in jail... FOR MURDER!

This is as close to a deal with the devil as you can get in the real world.

This proves to me that through being hunted and attacked for decades the Clintons have kowed. They have changed their principles so much that they are now more attuned to their enemy.

You might as well print this as the headline:

HILLARY SURRENDERS! SCAIFE WINS!

[TRex86]

Murdoch. Rove. Scaife. Next the ghost of Joe McCarthy. This IS a deal with the devil. McCain and Cain.
No pol has stooped so low. It makes McCain's reconciliation with Bush after the 2000 primary look like a renunciation. If Obama has to account for his preacher's intemperant remarks (two minutes taken out of context over 23 years of preaching) then how can she not be taken to task for going to bed with the worst of the right wing baddies? Is she the Manchurian candidate, her inner Goldwater Girl about to emerge like the alien after 40 years? Her Iraq vote wasn't cautious triangulation; her few enlightened votes were window dressing. At worst she is the worst opportunist of modern politics. At best she is a Machiavellian calculator, willing to kiss and make up with vile reactionaries that spent a decade trying to destroy her and her husband.

[Jacee]

Hillary needs to come out of her Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Closet.

Why would a Democrat vote for a Right Wing Wacko pretending to be a Democrat?

Hillary Clinton: representing the Right Wing Wacko Republican end of the Democratic Party.

Lovely, we need 8 more years of that.

[pottery]

"On domestic policy, Sen. Clinton and I might find more areas on which we disagree. Yet we also agree on others. Asked about the utter failure of federal efforts to rebuild New Orleans since the Katrina disaster, for example, she called it just what it has been -- "not just a national disgrace (but) an international embarrassment."

He isn't wrong ALL the time.

[maxy]

What is wrong with his mouth?

[4wehttam]

Sad to say, but I was just thinking the same thing? Is he toothless or is it just this photo, oh well, none of my business.

He says in his op-ed that Hillary showed courage and confidence........HELLLLLLLLOOOOOO!!!!!????
Of course she'd talk to the right wing media, she is after all a wannabe REPUBLICAN, no? If she had any COURAGE and CONFIDENCE she'd go on Larry King, Anderson Cooper, Hardball and Countdown......they have ALL invited her too, but she is TOO CHICKEN.

[jerryfromcalifornia]

F**K him and the rock he crawled out from under!

[GodisHateSpeech]

Scaife is the enemy of the American Worker.

[slow2]

The former president 'renewed' his contact with Scaife, for the potential benefit of his wife's campaign.

Check out the link:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129530

Amazing, since Scaife spent so much $$$ on "the Arkansas Project" to tank Bill Clinton. And today, Hillary is being "re-assessed" by Scaife. Follow the money and find the corruption.

[Zipperupus]

This puts my vote in jeopardy if Clinton gets the nomination. I just can't imagine voting for someone who has sunk so low as try and find common ground with a man who funded and helped instigate a failed coup d'etat through a trumped up impeachment over a blowjob.

Hillary is such a fighter that she is breaking bread with the vast right wing conspiracy to become the nominee.

I couldn't live with myself.

[rosal]

The media and Republicans are pushing hard for Clinton. They are salivating, wishing she wins the nomination.Polls show McSame would win against her. She would energize the Repubs, no wonder guys like this have "changed his opinion" of her. Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Faux news, they all are Clinton's supporters.

[teachearth]

She was not duped, she knew exactly what she was doing when she supported the War in Iraq. Her experience has proven mostly to be purely erroneous judgment founded on immoral and exploitative global American Empire. Aside from being funded by the health care lobby, and pharmaceutical lobby, she is funded by the military defense lobby. I wonder what the incentive is there? Follow the money I guess…
In my opinion, she has the blood of 4,000 American soldiers on her hands and is trying to vigorously wash it off in the bathtub. For Hillary Clinton to be supported by Scaife might be a ploy by Repubnutters to set her up, but I think it stands true to itself that they have much in common. This just shows how politically fused she is to the war machine.
I’m not a misogynist nor am I naïve of the politically inherent nature in the achievement of a female President. I completely disagree with key aspects of Hillary Clinton’s policy decisions in elected office, plain and simple.
Put it all together folks, the Clintons are a part of the incestuous family that is Corporate political domination of the United States Government. I’m just surprised that they all haven’t turned blue like the Blue Fugates from Appalachia (or I guess red in this case).
The ultimate question is: How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

[teachearth]

One of the many reasons I strongly believe Hillary is a hypocrite and outright liar is that she knew about the argument for war from long before 9/11.
She knew from her First Lady “experience” that these people wanted to overthrow Iraq from 1998! Therefore her repeated claim that she was duped along with the American people is a bold-faced lie.
What adds fuel to the fire is that in 1993, in an attempt to assuage Republicans, Bill Clinton appointed R. James Woolsey as Director of National Security. Even Woolsey claims to be thrown off by this appointment, but this proves early evidence for this seed to turdblossom into the Iraq War. Unfortunately, in 1994 Republicans gained the majority in the House and Newt Gingrich spouted his “Contract with America” so that plan didn’t work so well for the Clintons.
Anyhow, even though most of the press and these comments here say that Richard Scaife is most notable for his efforts to impeach Bill, his monstrous underbelly is most notably responsible for funding the Project for a New American Century and facilitating the Iraq war, which Hillary Clinton supported with a vote in the US Legislature and then further voted against the Levin Amendment to hold GW Bush accountable to Congress before actually leveling the country. Then she most recently voted to go into Iran, yikes!

[teachearth]

I saw this in the NYT and nearly keeled over at the thought of how blatantly this is all connected. After scanning a few of the blogrolls I’m still surprised at how few have mentioned PNAC, the Clinton connection, or the Iraq factor.
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) is a neo-conservative think tank fronted by none other than Bill Kristol (now a columnist with NYT). This “non-profit educational organization” is the prop organization for GW Bush and his Junta to take over Iraq, and they apparently succeeded until they all scrambled like rats after the quagmire Bush actually got us into began to unfold.
See for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNAC
Why do I bring this up you may ask?
In 1998, PNAC sent a letter to Bill Clinton urging him to overthrow Saddam Hussein using the “weapons of mass distruction” claim, before it became the dead horse buzzword of the Bush Presidency. This letter was signed by Bill Kristol, Richard Armitage (Bush Sec. of State), Paul Wolfowitz (Bush Deputy Sec. of State), Donald Rumsfeld (Bush Sec. of Defence), Robert Zoellick (Bush Deputy Sec. of State), Francis Fukuyama(Neocon Wonk), John Bolton(U.N. Rep), and R. James Woolsey(Director and head of CIA. ( save this guy for later)
Again, see for yourself: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
What I don’t really get (especially from the media and in some respects, Obama) is how this isn’t pounced on like a cheetah on a gazelle.

[Anie]

Hillary sits down and works with or talks with rabid Republicans the way Obama SAYS he would, and she is of course seen as The Devil for doing so.

Obama talks about uniting disparate 'sides' while encouraging the most rabidly disdainful fan-base possible, still blaming Clinton himself on March 10 in Mississipi for "leaking" the photo of him in Kenya when it was known by then that this recent version was scanned, uploaded, reposted, and discussed by a conservative forum member of Free Republic, two full days before Drudge, a member of that forum, reported the photo had been "circulated" in an email by a Clinton staffer and that he'd "obtained" a copy but Refused to produce the email.

Obama demagogued his audience in Mississipi about this, though in a previous Debate, he said he believed she didn't know about it and said it was time to move beyond that. See who scanned and upload the recently republished photo, at
http://andrys1.blogspot.com/2008/02/source-of-obama-photo-from-kenya.html

In Missisippi he also complained to his audience about how she didn't defend him about being a Christian and not a Muslim, when in fact she did so in clear statements until asked a THIRD time and, puzzled, answered again there was no basis for doubting it and added "as far as I know" with eyebrows raised about being asked a third time. See the ACTUAL answers she gave, at
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200803110002

[busybeez]

She is not sitting down with Republican politicians. She is using the right-wing smear media to help her campaign: Rush Limbaugh, FoxNews, and now Richard Mellon Scaife. She has shook hands with the devil to win the election. George W. has been quoted as saying that he would much rather Hillary win than Obama because she is closer to his policies. The policies of the rich getting richer, because Hillary and Bill have sold out to the oil, banking, and health insurance corporations. The Republicans fear Obama because he is anti-corporate and lobbyists. So the Republicans are eager to help Hillary win to keep the status quo in Washington D.C., just in case McCain loses in November. By siding up next to the right-wing smear machine, Hillary has proven that she has in fact become one of them. Note the article today in Scaife's Pittsburgh paper smearing Obama. That's what her meeting with him was really about, and the media knows it.

[rojo7449]

Funny, isn't it, how he plays "nice" in the northern states and bowls with the locals in PA.

He stands in the way of FL and MI getting their votes counted, but remains quiet as the media and his supporters scream that Hillary is tearing the party apart. He knows the TX counts are off, and he knows it's because his supporters voted more than once in huge numbers.

He will only casually, head down, barely audible state "Hillary should stay in the race for as long as she wants," but he thinks she should have defended him with greater force on his religion. Why would she even know his religion? There is justification for some confusion over Obama's early years, and only Obama can speak to the reality of what faith, if any, he was raised in.

Obama has a difficult time standing up for what and whom he believes in. Rev Wright must be in great personal pain at how Obama came out and said he would have left the church had the Rev not retired. That's not what he said in his speech, but let's not criticize the melodic prose on racism.

I know I will vote for whoever is the democratic candidate, but if he doesn't open up a lot more about who he is, it will be the most difficult vote I've ever cast.

[TRex86]

Kindly don't buy Hillary's disingenuous assertions about "counting" the votes in MI and FL. She signed an agreement last year to abide by the DNC ruling that their delegates would not be seated. Only back then she thought that her nomination was inevitable. Now she's a born-again Freedom Rider with regard to two tainted primaries, but she still disdains state caucuses. Oh, and does she acknowledge that Obama won Texas? Those darn caucuses again. The most disappointing aspect of Hillary is her shape-shifting around the truth. A measure of integrity is the ability to stand behind agreements. She could be a good president from the standpoint of knowing the job and the system, but WHAT DOES SHE STAND FOR?