Richard Mellon Scaife Dies

Richard Mellon Scaife died early Friday morning at the age of 82. Scaife, the billionaire heir to the Mellon banking fortune was also a newspaper publisher who provided the backing to libertarian and conservative plans working to discredit Bill Clinton. Scaife announced he had untreatable cancer two months ago, writing, "Some who dislike me may rejoice at the news. Naturally, I can't share their enthusiasm." When Hillary Clinton suggested in the 1990s that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy, her staffers believed Scaife was the man behind all the attacks. He gave $1.7 million to a project at the American Spectator magazine to find information about the Whitewater real estate scandal. While Scaife was a life-long supporter of Republicans (he once donated $1 million to Nixon in 334 separate checks to avoid gift taxes) he also was a libertarian who opposed the invasion of Iraq, and supported abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and marijuana legalization.