Senator Clinton's Visit To The Trib

Do you see who Senator Clinton is sitting next to? I'll quote from the appropriate (and you'll understand why the minute you read it) paragraph from the article:

Clinton made the comments during a 90-minute interview with Trib reporters and editors. Also in attendance was Tribune-Review owner Richard M. Scaife, who sat directly to Clinton's right during the meeting. The Tribune-Review was a frequent critic of former President Bill Clinton's administration. [emphasis added]

I know, I know. It's an easy joke. Sorry.

While the writers of the article, Mike Wereschagin, David M. Brown and Salena Zito, are careful to point out that the Trib was a frequent critic of the Clinton Administration, they didn't point out Richard Mellon Scaife's connection to the so-called "Arkansas Project."

Let's review. The Arkansas Project was, in Joe Conason's words, a "dirty tricks operation" designed to do as much damage to the Clinton Administration as possible. Scaife also paid Christopher Ruddy for his many articles and investigations into the Clintons' supposed shenanigans. The most famous of Ruddy's allegations involved the death of Vince Foster, in which Ruddy (nudge-nudge wink-wink) says Foster didn't commit suicide - it was murder!

Ruddy is now the editor-in-chief of Newsmax.com, another Scaife funded conservative news source. Small world, huh?

No wonder why Senator Clinton called the visit, "counter intuitive."

DickieCougarMellonScaife! In Vanity Fair!

The story's here.

You can read it on your own. I just want to fill in a few things. Take a look at this:

Over many years, in the five households the couple shared, the wife hired scores of servants to help take care of her rich husband. Then, in 2005, she hired someone to tail him. Margaret Ritchie Rhea Battle Scaife (whose friends call her Ritchie) suspected Richard Mellon Scaife (whose friends call him Dick) of committing adultery, so she enlisted the services of an investigator.

And a few lines later:

In December of 2005, the private detective proved Ritchie’s fears to have been well founded: he took pictures showing the reclusive 75-year-old billionaire with a woman named Tammy Vasco, a tall, blonde 43-year-old whose criminal history includes two arrests for prostitution. The pair was photographed at Doug’s Motel, a roadside establishment near Pittsburgh, where rooms rent for $49 a night, or $31 for three hours.

So, my friends, what does this Doug's place look like? It looks like this:

I googled the name and went to the map. Google has a new feature called "street view" and it offered up that picture at the address to Doug's Motel. I realise the sign doesn't say "Doug's Motel" but this one does:

Found the pic at Flickr. Same general address (Route 30 in Irwin) Same foundation, same general shape - the only difference is the name change.

The deeply pocketed billionaire took his mistress to that roadside pay-by-the-hour motel - how funny is that?

Another quotation from Vanity Fair:

The estranged couple and their intimates aren’t the only ones with an interest in this divorce. Richard Mellon Scaife is the man who funded the movement that made “family values” a watchword of the right and badly damaged the Clinton presidency. Many would now dearly love to hang him in the gallery of hypocrites whose Dickensian comeuppance exposes the moral bankruptcy of the culture wars.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Bill and Hill (and Dickie Cougar MellonScaife)

And, speaking of local reporters who blog, Bob Mayor points us to this Newsweek article which claims that Richard Mellon Scaife (Supremo Wingnut, local bad boy and the man behind the vast, right-wing conspiracy -- I will not use quotes like Newsweek did) is getting all BFF with . . .

. . . wait for it . . .

. . . Bill Clinton!

I must admit, however, that it doesn't surprise me all that much on Clinton's part.

(If you haven't been reading Mayo's online pieces on Pennsylvania's open records law, you should. I'm still pissed that I couldn't attend that forum. Hmmm, "BFF" and "pissed." It's a wonder that 2pj managed to eke out even a high school rating.)
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WAPO Snarks on Scaife

My sister Betty (who works in DC) sent me a link yesterday to the snarkalicious Washington Post article on the "surpassingly vicious spectacle that is the divorce of Richard Mellon Scaife."

While a few blogs have already linked to it yesterday, there's a couple of things I thought worth noting:

1) If you only read the article, go back right now and view the equally snarky video they've posted.

2) While seeming to leave no gory detail out, the article actually sanitizes one bit. It says of Scaife, "He almost never speaks to the media, and on one of the few occasions he did, it was to tell a reporter, who'd sandbagged him on the street, that she was ugly and that her mother was ugly, too."

What WAPO left out was that he also told her, "You fucking Communist cunt, get out of here."

We don't actually have to claim this guy as our own, do we?

Oh, and Betty, no, you should not expect to receive $1,800.00 asparagus tongs for Christmas.