Rosy Words for Clinton by ’90s Nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife

NYT: Rosy Words for Clinton by ’90s Nemesis
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: March 31, 2008

To Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Richard Mellon Scaife qualifies as a charter member of the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” 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. Pennsylvania will hold its Democratic primary on April 22, and the Tribune-Review, the second-largest daily newspaper in Pittsburgh, has yet to endorse a candidate.

Given Mr. Scaife’s record, Mrs. Clinton could not have expected a rosy reception. But Mr. Scaife, who attended the meeting, wrote in The Tribune-Review that the senator “exhibited an impressive command of many of today’s most pressing domestic and international issues.” Her answers, he added, “were thoughtful, well-stated and often dead on.”...

At the height of his anti-Clinton days, Mr. Scaife donated $1.8 million to The American Spectator magazine for what became known as the “Arkansas Project” — an unflattering excavation of the Clintons’ personal lives in Arkansas. His objective was to publicize, if not eventually validate, accusations about the supposed involvement of the Clintons in corrupt land deals and Mr. Clinton’s extramarital affairs, among other things.

But once Mrs. Clinton began running for president, Mr. Scaife — and his thick checkbook — remained on the sidelines, surprising many who predicted he would leap at the chance to dredge up new, potentially scandalous information about her. That apparent indifference seems to have morphed into tepid enthusiasm for her....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/politics/31clinton.html

continues to have a friend in the white house. When all else fails, the rich stick with their own. Bill and Hillary Clinton did all they could during the 1990s to make sure corporations got what they wanted in the way of NAFTA, GATT, WTO, PNTR (permanent normal trade relations with China).