>The Rise of The Right In America–The Biggest Story In American Politics

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Let’s Have The Facts About Richard Scaife

We can learn much about a person by his statements. Speaking to John F. Kennedy, Jr. who was editor of a magazine called George at the time, this is what he had to say about Bill Clinton’s activities as Arkansas governor and president:

Listen, [Clinton] can order people done away with at his will. He’s got the entire federal government behind him. … God, there must be 60 people [associated with Bill Clinton] who have died mysteriously. (3)

Richard Mellon Scaife has been a key figure in conservative politics since the 1960s. Called by liberal pundit James Carville in 1999 “the archconservative godfather in political funding,” he helped bankroll the modern conservative movement. The Scaife Foundation, the Carthage Foundation, and the Allen foundations are largely drawn from the oil and banking holdings of people like Scaife. His personal fortune is estimated by Forbes to be around $800,000. Institutional Affiliations: Heritage Foundation: Trustee (1985-current) (1) Hoover Institution (Director) (1) Committee on Present Danger: Funder (1985-1989) (2) Sarah Scaife Foundation: Chair (6) Carthage Foundation: Chair (6) Pittsburgh World Affairs Council, Director Pepperdine University, Director (1) Government Posts/Panels/Commissions Former member, U.S. Advisory Commission for Public Diplomacy Tribune-Review Publishing, Vice Chair Tribune0-Review, Owner (1) Sacramento Union (past owner) (12) First Boston Corp., Director Education (no degrees mentioned) University of Pittsburgh, (4) Yale University (4,6) Scaife’s funding activiies began in various organizations, including the American Bar Assn., particularly regarding education to confront communism. Scaife soon developed The Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution and Georgetown International Studies. Scaife began funding the Heritage Foundation in 1974. Readers of PoliticalDisconnect will be able to read an in depth article soon about this foundation and its efforts to reveal the true history of Barak Obama. Initially, Schaife was interested in buying media outlets and funding political candidates. This shifted into funding organizations instead. He purchased the largest paper in Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Tribune/Review, in 1969 for $5 million when he was 37. Disallusionment with Richard Nixon caused him to switch from papers to organizations. Strangely, Scaife reportedly supports abortion rights. Otherwise, he has adopted a conservative agenda. Sources (1) Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees http://www.heritage.org/About/Departments/trustees.cfm (2) Media Transparency: Committee on the Present Danger http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?recipientID=1779 (3) Robert G. Kaiser and Ira Chinoy, “Scaife: Funding Father of the Right,” The Washington Post, May 2, 1999 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaifemain050299.htm (4) Robert G. Kaiser, “Money, Family Name Shaped Scaife,” The Washington Post, May 3, 1999 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaifemain050399.htm (5) Iver Peterson, “In a Battle of Newspapers, a Conservative Spends Liberally,” The New York Times, December 8, 1997 (6) Karen Rothmeyer, “Citizen Scaife,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1981 http://archives.cjr.org/year/81/4/scaife.asp (7) Mediatransparency: Aggregated Scaife Grants http://www.mediatransparency.org/scaifeaggregate.php (8) Sally Covington, Moving a Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations, The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, July 1997 (9) Al Franken, Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) (New York: Dutton, 2003) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525947647/qid=1070375663/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-1853879-8145446 (10) Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: Fear & Favor 2000: How Power Shapes the News http://www.fair.org/ff2000.html (11) Dennis B. Roddy, “Tribune-Review’s Election Coverage Gores Vice President’s Campaign,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 8, 2000 (12) Robert B. Gunnison, “Sacramento Union Says It Will Stop Publishing Historic paper closing down after 142 years,” The San Francisco Chronicle, January 13, 1994 (13) From the Feeding Trough, cited on Mediatransparency.org http://www.mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=3 According to a 1999 Washington Post report, Scaife’s funding work has boosted the conservative agenda in recent years, his family’s charitable entities having given at least $340 million to $620 million dollars. The total of Saife’s giving—to conservatives as well as many other beneficiaries—exceeds $600 million, or $1.4 billion in current dollars. 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, Sciefe has made most of his grants with no strings attached. Scaife’s philanthropy has had a disproportionate impact on politics and perhaps is the biggest story in American politics in the last of the Twentieth Century.

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