Richard Mellon Scaife

From dKosopedia

1 Background
2 Affiliations
3 External Links

Background

Richard Mellon Scaife is the grand nephew of the notorious Andrew Mellon. A billionaire contributor to the Republican Party and right-wing think-tanks, one of the most influential men behind the right wing today. Scaife has helped establish their biggest institutions and supported some of their most radical ideas.

Mr. Scaife was a primary source of money used to fund attacks against Bill Clinton during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky eras of his presidency. He has also been known to purchase mass quantities of conservative books (especially those published by Regnery) to push them up the bestseller lists.

Among the right-wing organizations substantially funded by Mr. Scaife are the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Judicial Watch, Cato Institute and a working group within his American Spectator publication called the "Arkansas Project," whose specific aim was to locate and create dirt on the Clintons in order to smear them, in hopes of removing Clinton from office.

People for the American Way estimates that the Scaife Foundations have channeled in excess of $340 million to right-wing groups over the last thirty years, more than any other individual.

Scaife has a long history of supporting attacks on organizations and institutions which refuse to kowtow to right-wing interests. For example in 1985 Scaife reportedly financed most of retired Gen. William Westmoreland's libel suit against CBS over a documentary, "The Uncounted Enemy". This documentary claimed that he deliberately underestimated enemy troop strength in Vietnam (Morning Call, (Allentown, PA), March 1, 1985, Westmoreland Suit backed by Mellon Heir, Associated Press).

Clinton Not So Bad?

One of Scaife's collaborators, Christopher Ruddy, said "Clinton wasn’t such a bad president, in fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today." (Source: She Has Neutralized Both Murdoch and Scaife, Feb. 20, 2007)

Scaife fears open documents in divorce proceedings

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/23/karma-baby-scaife-fears-open-documents-in-divorce-proceedings

Inside the sick strange world of Dick

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/02/scaife200802

Affiliations

External Links

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This page was last modified 00:44, 6 January 2008 by roger. Based on work by CD and dKosopedia user(s) Roger, Corncam, BartFraden, Allamakee Democrat, Lestatdelc, CSTAR, Kagro X and Aaron Gillies. Content is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.