Hillary Clinton and Richard Mellon Scaife - How Far to the Right is Hillary
Ideology of Scaife supported groups:
... As soul mates in what they considered a war over American values, the groups to which he gave shared a core set of conservative beliefs evident in the way they described their missions.
For example, the Foundation for Economic Education promotes "individual freedom, private property, limited government, free trade." The Pacific Legal Foundation works "for less government and the preservation of free enterprise, private property rights and individual liberties." The Reason Foundation advocates "public policies based upon individual liberty and responsibility and a free-market approach." Lower taxes and fewer regulations are also part of the broadly shared program.
In the realm of national security, Scaife-supported groups have a similarly shared view of the need for a bristling national defense and vigilance against communism and terrorism.
see reference below **
Photograph of Bill Clinton and Rev. Wright Surfaces
The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and President Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast at the White House in September 1998.
By Kate Phillips at New York Times Blog
From Slate Magazine:Hillary's Rev. WrightHis name is Richard Mellon Scaife.
By Timothy Noah/Updated Tuesday, March 25, 2008
"Hillary Clinton has told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that she would have left her church if her pastor had made divisive comments like those of Barack Obama's minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "He would not have been my pastor," sniffed La Clinton. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."
The obvious reply is that you also choose which ministers receive the honor of an invitation to a White House prayer breakfast addressed by the president of the United States. Well, OK, maybe you don't, but the Clintons did, back in 1998, when Bill Clinton was seeking political absolution for his affair with a White House intern. As the Obama campaign is all too happy to point out, Wright was invited to that breakfast.
" Bill Clinton overcame whatever scruples he might harbor to raise money for his foundation. Hillary Clinton is now doing the same in the interest of her candidacy. She is free, of course, to associate with whomever she pleases. But she is not free, while paddling the sewers with Scaife, to judge Obama publicly for belonging to Wright's church. Compared with Scaife, Wright is St. Francis of Assisi. The only possible reason why any Pennsylvanian might judge Wright more harshly than Scaife is that Scaife is white and Wright is black. That must be obvious even to Hillary as she cozies up to this repulsive billionaire."
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And here is Bill Clinton's thank you note to Mr. Wright, dated Oct. 28, 1998:
Dear Pastor Wright:
Thank you so much for your kind message.
I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country.
You have my best wishes.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
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And see article from Alternet Olbermann Asks Clinton About Scaife Alliance/Posted by Brave New Films/April 22,2008
Hillary Clinton Endorsed by Right-wing Extremist Richard Mellon Scaife
Scaife long time supporter and funder of right wing organizations and think-tanks.
Not she also gets to dump on Obama & Rev. Wright once again
Olbermann asks HRC about unholy alliance with Scaife
Hillary Clinton siding with the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!
Hillary's alliance with Richard Melon Scaife was not out of the blue but part of some sort of strategy.
So I wonder will she ally herself with extreme right wingers the John Birchers & mcCarthyites or whatever maybe she'll reach out to the Klan next- I don't think this is the sort of uniting Obama had in mind- he wants to reach out to those with similar values and views who tend to be somewhat reasonable -
Countdown: Strange Bedfellows/ April 01/2007
Counter-intuitive or strategy going back over a year
Keith Questions her motives , her integrity and her self-respect
( she has no shame!!!)
Update 10:41pm/ April 25
also see :
Who is Richard Mellon Scaife?
And from NBC: Doug Coe & The Family & The Cedars
Doug Coe Hillary's mentor/ The Christian Mafia
'The Fellowship' aka 'The Family' secretive DC prayer group
Is he as extreme as Rev. Wright. He believes in fanatical devotion to Jesus.
I wonder about how committed Hillary is to an open liberal & pluralistic society.
Is democracy merely a tool to be used for whatever her real agenda is ? More and more she sounds like John McCain or worse Dick Cheney et al.
** And for more on Richard Mellon Scaife see:
Scaife: Funding Father of the Right/By Robert G. Kaiser and Ira Chinoy/Washington Post/Sunday, May 2, 1999
Indeed, focusing on his role in the crusade against Clinton can obscure the 66-year-old philanthropist's real importance, which is not based on his opposition or support for any individual politicians (though he once gave Richard M. Nixon $1 million). His biggest contribution has been to help fund the creation of the modern conservative movement in America.
By compiling a computerized record of nearly all his contributions over the last four decades, The Washington Post found that Scaife and his family's charitable entities have given at least $340 million to conservative causes and institutions – about $620 million in current dollars, adjusted for inflation. The total of Scaife's giving – to conservatives as well as many other beneficiaries – exceeds $600 million, or $1.4 billion in current dollars, much more than any previous estimate.
In the world of big-time philanthropy, there are many bigger givers. The Ford Foundation gave away $491 million in 1998 alone. But by concentrating his giving on a specific ideological objective for nearly 40 years, and making most of his grants with no strings attached, Scaife's philanthropy has had a disproportionate impact on the rise of the right, perhaps the biggest story in American politics in the last quarter of the 20th century.
His money has established or sustained activist think tanks that have created and marketed conservative ideas from welfare reform to enhanced missile defense; public interest law firms that have won important court cases on affirmative action, property rights and how to conduct the national census; organizations and publications that have nurtured conservatism on American campuses; academic institutions that have employed and promoted the work of conservative intellectuals; watchdog groups that have critiqued and harassed media organizations, and many more.
Together these groups constitute a conservative intellectual infrastructure that provided ideas and human talent that helped Ronald Reagan initiate a new Republican era in 1980, and helped Newt Gingrich initiate another one in 1994. Conservative ideas once dismissed as flaky or extreme moved into the mainstream, and as the liberal National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy concluded in a recent report, "The long-standing conservative crusade to discredit government as a vehicle for societal progress has come to fruition as never before."
and so it goes,
GORD.
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