CE Week #12: “So Happy Together”
Bill archenemy Richard Mellon Scaife now has ‘admiration’ for him. Huh?
By Mark Hosenball
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 4:21 PM ET Nov 10, 2007
Bill Clinton is never at a loss for company. When he’s not globe-trotting or charming audiences for as much as $400,000 a speech, he’s often schmoozing visitors in his suite of offices in Harlem. Last July, the former president sat down with a billionaire impressed with the William J. Clinton Foundation’s campaign against AIDS in Africa. The two men chatted amiably over lunch for more than two hours, and the visitor pledged to write Clinton’s foundation a generous check. But there was something unusual, if not plain weird, about the meeting. NEWSWEEK has learned that the billionaire so eager to endear himself to the former president was Richard Mellon Scaife—once the Clintons’ archenemy and best-known as the man behind a “vast, right-wing conspiracy” that Hillary Clinton said was out to destroy them.
Scaife was no run-of-the-mill Clinton hater. In the 1990s, the heir to the Mellon banking fortune contributed millions to efforts to dig up dirt on President Clinton. He backed the Clinton-bashing American Spectator magazine, whose muckrakers produced lurid stories about Clinton’s alleged financial improprieties and trysts. Scaife also financed a probe called the Arkansas Project that tried, among other things, to show that Clinton, while Arkansas governor, protected drug runners.
The Arkansas Project largely came up empty, and most of the stories were ignored by all but the most avid Clinton antagonists. But one Scaife-backed conspiracy theory got widespread attention. In 1993, White House aide and Clinton friend Vince Foster was found dead of a gunshot wound in a park outside Washington, D.C. Three official investigations concluded the death was a suicide. Yet Scaife dollars helped promote assertions that Foster had been murdered—the not-so-subtle subtext being that the Clintons had something to do with it. Scaife hired Christopher Ruddy, a reporter who doggedly pursued the conspiracy theory in a Scaife newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Though discredited, the story resonated with people who believed Clinton was hiding dark secrets. Scaife and Ruddy later started Newsmax, a Web site and magazine that attacks their enemies and lauds their heroes.
Bill Clinton now finds himself the unlikeliest of Scaife heroes. Last month Ruddy posted a softball interview with Clinton on the Newsmax site (sample question: “What is the best thing about being an ex-president?”). A worshipful cover story followed in the current edition of the magazine. Clinton, it gushed, is “a political and cultural powerhouse” who is “part Merlin and part Midas—a politician with a magical touch.”
What is going on here? Scaife declined to comment, but Ruddy tells NEWSWEEK he and Scaife believe Clinton’s life since leaving office has been “very laudable,” and that he is doing “very important work representing the country when the U.S. is widely resented in the world.” He said they never suggested Clinton was involved in Foster’s death, and insisted they were not among those hyping alleged Clinton sex scandals, though he acknowledged their work may have encouraged others.
Whatever the reasons for Scaife’s change of heart, it’s not hard to figure out why the Clintons would embrace a former nemesis. As they prepared for Hillary’s presidential run, the Clintons made quiet attempts to disarm, or at least neutralize, some of their most vocal opponents. Last year Hillary accepted an offer from Rupert Murdoch (who always hedges his bets) to host a fund-raiser for her Senate campaign. The New York Times reported that the Clinton camp has also made efforts to open a line of communication to blogger Matt Drudge, who has served as a conduit for anti-Clinton GOP leaks.
Ruddy, who accompanied Scaife to the Clinton lunch, says the peacemaking meeting came about after former New York City mayor Ed Koch offered to put the two together. (Koch declined to comment.) Clinton, pouring on the charm, greeted Scaife like an old friend. “President Clinton believes in redemption and moving forward,” says spokeswoman Jennifer Hanley. Ruddy says they talked about Clinton’s charitable work and avoided opening old wounds. After receiving the full Bill treatment, Scaife left with a new outlook on the man he had once set out to crush. Scaife isn’t ready to sign on to Hillary’s campaign—he’s still a Republican. But his lawyer, Yale Gutnick, says Bill Clinton and Richard Mellon Scaife are now members of a “mutual admiration society.” Cue the apocalypse.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/69545
Wow. I can’t say I’d let him in my office at all. I can’t believe that Scaife would be doing this at all without some hidden motive. Specially with hilary in the run for president. I can’t believe that this is going on.
It’s politics they have to have a hidden agenda and only time will tell. I find it hard to believe also that anyone would ever think either of the Clintons had anything to do with a shooting. Specially one of their friends. Presidents have the power to cover certain things up. But not those type of things.
I think it is great on the other hand that Clintons AIDS fund program charity… thing… is getting more money. I believe that AIDS needs some definate attention. Specially in the US and other places like Africa. I’ve been to Africa and people there aren’t even aware of the AIDS problem. They say, oh yea they’ve got it taken care of now. We don’t need to worry. But they don’t. Something like 1 in 5 have AIDS or HIV.
So congrads on that… but if I were Bill Clinton I’d be suspicious
WOW! Bill Clinton gets $400,000 per speech. That makes sense because he was the president of the united states for two terms. It sounds good that he has opened a William J. Clinton Foundation’s campaign that will go and fight the AIDS in Africa. It is good that the Billionaire is going to write a healthy check to this cause. That seems weird that an archenemy of the Clintons would be so eager to help him. He must have really hated clinton to Dig up dirt on him. He would back a lot of Clinton- bashing Americans spectator magazines. I mean come on. This was our president of the United States. Even though you might not like him, you shouldn’t go around bashing him every chance that you get. I know that I do not like President Bush, but I wont go around saying bad things about him all the time. If it is applicable to the situation I say use it. Otherwise you look like a petty fourth grader. Sure Clinton might have backed drug runners, but it was in the most indirect way possible. If he really had any idea he was doing this he wouldn’t have done it.
What is going on? I know that Bill Clinton is charming (believe me, I know. That smile, that swagger, that little leftward listing in his voice… mmm.. the man is a powerful orator. Orally skilled. Surrounds himself with likeminded people. Surrounds himself with other people who are also… you know…) He really is. And the sit-down with him could sure help endear one to the man, but seriously, what is going on? The article didn’t even posit one single theory. It’s got me freaked out, because, well, the four horsemen, and the lion will lay down with the lamb, and the moon turning blood-red and whatnot.
Bill Clinton isn’t in the presidency any more; that makes him immediately more likeable. He’s doing a lot of charity; that’s laudable and gets him some more points. But still, I just can’t believe that this long-time Clinton-defamer, muckraking, yellow journalist just turns right around without A.) an ulterior motive or B.) some very firm hand-shaking by the Clinton camp.
There’s been a string of formerly anti-Clintoneers turning their lives around (seeing the light) and either helping Hillary, or at least not being a thorn in her side. The Clintons know the hill, and are in a pretty powerful position, and we know how good they can be at suppressing –stories. It just makes me wonder what they’re giving away, promising, or threatening. Or, if really, mister president Bill Clinton really is just that charming.