The Thaw that Started Five Months Ago
The press is agog that Hillary Clinton sat down with–and wooed–her long time personal vast right-wing conspiracy funder, Richard Mellon Scaife.
NYT:
But in a striking about-face, Mr. Scaife now says he has changed his mind — at least about one half of the duo.
Fox:
Scaife, who unnerves some conservatives with countervailing positions on abortion and the war in Iraq, said he still wants to hear from Barack Obama before his newspaper endorses a candidate in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary.
ABC:
Richard Mellon Scaife, a major funder of the 90s-era Vast Right Wing Conspiracy — specifically, The American Spectator and its "Arkansas Project" — today reconsiders his former nemesis in an op-ed in his newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
JMM:
This alone has to amount to some sort cosmic encounter like something out of a Wagner opera. Remember, this is the guy who spent millions of dollars puffing up wingnut fantasies about Hillary’s having Vince Foster whacked and lots of other curdled and ugly nonsense.
Aside from the fact that it is quite common for the poobahs of newspapers to meet with political candidates leading up to an election in their community (and Scaife suggests he’ll meet with Obama, too), I think the meeting ought to be put in context with Bill Clinton’s earlier meeting with Scaife, back in November (a meeting only ABC’s Tapper notes in his coverage), one carefully stage-managed by Scaife’s vast right wing conspirators of the 1990s, Christopher Ruddy and Michael Isikoff. Scaife’s revisionary history of his involvement in the Clintons’ woes started when, in November, Ruddy called Bubba "part Merlin and part Midas."