Hillary the Uniter Impresses Scaife

by D. Cupples |  Given my dealings with some friends who fully believe what Rush Limbaugh says, I know first hand that it takes great patience and diplomatic skills to have productive  conversations with people who staunchly disagree with me -- and to end on a positive note.

Once again, Hillary Clinton proved her ability to work with people who intensely disagree with her and to leave the door wide-open for future conversations.  And she just bagged the elephant, so to speak:  Richard Melon Scaife, the outspoken billionaire right-wing owner of the Pittsburgh-Tribune Review -- a man with a documented history of being anything but fond of the Clintons. 

My jaw is still on the floor over how positive Mr. Scaife's written reaction to Hillary is:

"Hillary Clinton walked into a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conference room last Tuesday to meet with some of the newspaper's editors and reporters and declared, 'It was so counterintuitive, I just thought it would be fun to do.'

"The room erupted in laughter. Her remark defused what could have been a confrontational meeting.

"More than that, it said something about the New York senator and former first lady who hopes to be America's next president.

"More than most modern political figures, Sen. Clinton has been criticized regularly, often harshly, by the Trib. We disagreed with many of her policies and her actions in the past. We still disagree with some of her proposals.

"The very morning that she came to the Trib, our editorial page raised questions about her campaign and criticized her on several other scores.

"Reading that, a lesser politician -- one less self-assured, less informed on domestic and foreign issues, less confident of her positions -- might well have canceled the interview right then and there.

"Sen. Clinton came to the Trib anyway and, for 90 minutes, answered questions.

"Her meeting and her remarks during it changed my mind about her.

"Walking into our conference room, not knowing what to expect (or even, perhaps, expecting the worst), took courage and confidence. Not many politicians have political or personal courage today, so it was refreshing to see her exhibit both.

"Sen. Clinton also exhibited an impressive command of many of today's most pressing domestic and international issues. Her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on.

"Particularly regarding foreign policy, she identified what we consider to be the most important challenges and dangers that the next president must confront and resolve in order to guarantee our nation's security. Those include an increasingly hostile Russia, an increasingly powerful China and increasing instability in Pakistan and South America.

"Like me, she believes we must pull our troops out of Iraq, because it is time for Iraqis to handle their own destiny -- and, more important, because it is past time to end the toll on our soldiers there, to begin rebuilding our military, and to refocus our attention on other threats, starting with Afghanistan.

"On domestic policy, Sen. Clinton and I might find more areas on which we disagree. Yet we also agree on others. Asked about the utter failure of federal efforts to rebuild New Orleans since the Katrina disaster, for example, she called it just what it has been -- "not just a national disgrace (but) an international embarrassment."

"Does all this mean I'm ready to come out and recommend that our Democrat readers choose Sen. Clinton in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary?

"No -- not yet, anyway. In fairness, we at the Trib want to hear Sen. Barack Obama's answers to some of the same questions and to others before we make that decision.

"But it does mean that I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday's meeting -- and it's a very favorable one indeed.

"Call it a 'counterintuitive' impression." (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, emphasis added)

Kudos to Mr. Scaife for not being afraid to change his mind. 

Kudos to Hillary for not only reaching out to someone who has (for years) acted like a political "enemy," but also for finding common ground on some substantive issues.

These are precisely the skills -- and precisely the kind of mature leadership -- that our next president will need in order to resolve the foreign-policy disaster that is the Iraq war, to restore good will toward America worldwide, and to work with 535 legislators to solve a massive array of domestic problems our nation faces.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has video clips from the interview with Hillary. Memeorandum has commentary.

Other BN-Politics Posts:

* Hillary's Health Care Plan Includes Caps (and Ways to Help Pay for it)

* Primary Polls Conflict: Pick the One You like?

* Contractor Supplies Bad Ammo, Gets Hundreds of Millions

* Obama Rules v. Clinton Rules: Evinced by Carville Flap

Comments

[Danny]

I read the story and watched the video's of the meeting between Hillary and Tribune - eye opening what an amazing woman Hillary Clinton IS.

Obama is thinking again..."Hillary should quit the race"?! No Obama, you should quit!A leader like Hillary is listens to the people not young politicians like you who have the backing of the corporate media whores who think everything should be handed to them on a silver platter.

Hillary's going to make them work again! Their afraid of that, me thinks.

[D. Cupples]

Danny,

Your opinion is too vaguely phrased: are you saying that you support Hillary and don't like Barack?

LOL!

[Adam]

You're being extremely easy on Scaife. Look at the groups Scaife gives money to. Read the editorials in that newspaper, for goodness sake. It's going to take a lot more than one nice essay to make me believe that Scaife is anything other than a neocon right-wing asshole who will do whatever he thinks will weaken the Democratic party's chances in the fall.

Hillary and Scaife were using each other. They both want Hillary to do well in Pennsylvania, but their motivations for that could not be more different. Hillary thinks she would be a good president. Scaife thinks Hillary's success will hurt her party.

Scaife produced a carefully crafted comment, saying nice things about Hillary without saying he agrees with her on anything of note, except Scaife's one apostate position (withdrawal from Iraq). Whoa, Hillary agrees that the Katrina reaction was an embarrassment and that Pakistan is unstable? Stop the presses! Those aren't policy positions, they're realities.

The Tribune Review statement is designed to boost Hillary's support in Pennsylvania, obviously. In particular, it's a message to the right-wing folks that read Scaife's rag, that they should continue Limbaugh's plan and vote for Hillary. (I laughed out loud when I read Scaife refer to "our Democrat readers". What, all five of them?) Scaife did this while not actually endorsing Hillary's positions in any significant way (again, with the exception of Iraq).

I have no trouble believing that the folks at the paper found Hillary personally charming. Most stories about Hillary seem to suggest that those who deal with her personally find her a lot warmer and more personable than her public persona may suggest. And that's certainly a nice quality about Hillary. But this was a political ploy, plain and simple.

I really hope Obama doesn't talk to this guy. I don't imagine he will. Unlike Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Richard Scaife can and should be ignored. Besides, Scaife would endorse Hillary over Obama no matter what Obama said. It's not as though his endorsement has any policy motivations, after all. His motivation is to damage the Democratic party.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

I know who Scaife is: I learned about him years ago when he was trustee of the Heritage Foundation (I think he still is).

I agree that he likely isn't an all-out fan of Hillary.

Watch his face in some of those videos. He may not like most of her politics, but he doesn't seem to HATE her. His hatred was from a distance -- which is true of most hatred.

If she'd been a different person, Scaife's reactions likely wouldn't have been so positive.

My whole point is that she talked to someone she had every reason to be leery of, and he came away from it at least a bit cooled off and focusing on a few pieces of common ground.

That's how people on opposing sides build bridges and start hammering out compromises: it's a shame that many of our federal legislators haven't been doing that since (at least) 2001.

I have family members like Scaife: not nearly as rich but equally fearful, which results in anger and hatred of people they don't even know or understand.

Obama is very good with people, too. I hope he does go to the interview.

[Adam]

Yes, I have no problem at all believing that Scaife walked away from that meeting saying "wow, Hillary was much nicer, more personable, more knowledgeable, and more articulate than I expected."

But if she had Obama's pledged delegate count, there's not a chance on God's green earth that he would have written that piece. He may have thought "gee, she's a nice, reasonable, well spoken person", but he would have written a negative piece talking about how terrible (from his perspective) her policies are on the environment, education, taxation, and so on.

Both the real essay and the hypothetical essay I just outlined would be honest statements from Scaife's perspective. It's simply a matter of picking the one that serves his current political interests.

For that exact reason, there's almost no chance he would write a positive piece about Obama. And for THAT reason, there's very little chance Obama will go to talk to him.

[MissMeliss]

Apropos of nothing: I just received an "excellent blog" award, and am passing it along to y'all. The post will be live on MY blog within an hour.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

I agree that Hillary is not his first choice. Is supect that he finds all three candidates distasteful.

As politically astute as Scaife is, I'm guessing that he thinks what I've thought for some weeks: neither Hillary not Barack have a good chance against McCain UNLESS they're on a joint ticket.

Together, they could probably beat him (doesn't matter who's #1). If Scaife speculates that way, he probably understands that the party will likely try to forge the dream ticket.

Already, Hillary has indicated 3 times publicly that she would throw her support behind Barack if he is the nominee -- which means that she's preparing for a dream ticket, too (if so, that means she's willing to be VP).

Scaife is a long-term thinker and planner -- as evinced by how he went after Bill, Social Security, the inheritance tax.... He's also more policy- than label-oriented. Self-serving policies, to be sure, but he's not a loyal R. He wants the RESULTS that he wants.

I don't know the man, but IF he sees a dream ticket as a likely reality, that might give him a different set of motives.

I'm not saying he would want Obama/Hillary over McCain. Then again, he might, if only because he wants the troops out of Iraq and the war funding cut -- he sees Iraq as a huge drain on our nation.

He might be willing to suffer through 4 years of a Dem White House just to have a better chance of getting out of Iraq.

Then again, he might realize that there's a good chance of the Dems winning on a joint ticket (even if he prefers McCain). Maybe Scaife wants better access (or influence) so the policy results would be less dismal to him if the Dems win.

Then again, maybe he's as short-term a thinker as Rush Limbaugh. I really don't know, but I don't think it's as clear-cut as you suggest.

I could be wrong and will happily admit it to you if I am.