So? Who is this Guy George Conway III

So... Who Is This Guy George Conway III?

And what's his connection to Malibu Ken Starr and Richard Mellon Scaife?

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 11th 1998 --- New York (APJP) -- Heck if we know. All we can tell you is that George the III denies any connection to Richard Mellon Scaife, the noted Pittsburgh billionaire who appears to make a habit of funding right wing think tanks and ultra-right conspiracy authors like Chris Ruddy, and owns so many media channels that Ted Turner eyes him wistfully.

We believe George Conway.

Why not? He doesn't have an axe to grind. So what if the White House has been trying to subpoena him to find out if he's connected to Paula Jones and Ken Starr simultaneously in some kind of serendipitous three-way? So what if Jonathan Broder suspects that Conway was the brains behind the Paula Jones suit against the President -- hiding it from his partners, which include Bernard Nussbaum, a frequent White House "guest."

We trust George. He phoned us back this morning only minutes after we spoke with his beleaguered secretary at the venerable Wachtell, Lipton, Katz Law firm in the Big Apple. George also responded to our e-mail even before he phoned.

Here's our e-mail, and here's his response:

From: American Politics Journal Inc[SMTP:ampol@americanpolitics.com]

Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 1998 5:59 AM

To: GTConway@wlrk.com

Subject: Would like to know your personal or professional links to Dick Scaife

Dear Attorney Conway:

We are researching a piece on you and wonder whether you have ever represented Richard Mellon Scaife or his holdings? Also, whether you might be a personal friend of his or his family. We have what we consider a reliable source who claims you have and you do. However, in fairness, we would like to ask you personally.

American Politics Journal

Here's George's Response:

Subject: RE: Would like to know your personal or professional links to Dick Scaife

Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:02:55 -0500

From: "Conway, George T." <GTConway@WLRK.com>

To: "'editors@apj.us'" <editors@apj.us>

For the record:

I have never met Mr. Scaife. I have never met any member of his family. I have never represented Mr. Scaife or his holdings. I have no connections whatsoever with Mr. Scaife, his holdings or his family.

The claims of your "reliable source" are completely false.

George Conway

George may be right. Our source is not known to be right 100% of the time and that's why we, unlike people like Tim Russert, and most everyone at MSNBC, ask people for their side of a story before we go to print.

George III is a terrific lawyer with a ivy education and a reputed million dollar a year income from Wachtell Lipton.

Not bad when you're only 34 years old.

But George sounded terrible this morning - almost hysterical under the strain. We don't blame him, he may have barked up the wrong tree when he allegedly teamed up with Paula Jones and Susan Carpenter MacBimbo and the gang of gay-bashers led by Donovan Campbell and John Whitehead.

The Wachtell firm ain't small potatoes and according to "Law firms ranked by American Lawyer Magazine" -- as measured by Gross Revenues -- it bills at #23 on the legal hit parade at about $121 million a year as compared to leading NYC legal eagle firm Skadden, Arps, Slate which bills more than $650 million - to put it in perspective.

George didn't sound so conservative this morning when he phoned back our publisher and denied knowing Scaife. As a matter of fact, he was almost frantic.

Here was the conversation as per my shorthand - which is quite good after 25 years:

CONWAY: Hi, it's George Conway returning your call. I got your e-mail and I sent you back a response.

KOOP: Oh thanks George. How are you?

CONWAY: Ahh, Good?

KOOP: Good. You know, we're just following up on this Observer story. I haven't see your e-mail yet but,

CONWAY: Y'know, let me, you can...You can take that um .. based... I don't have anything to do with Scaife, the man's family, holdings, represented them, NOTHING.

KOOP: Okay, Including the Federalist Cl . .or whatever that club is...

CONWAY: I'm a member of the Federalist Society, but I mean . . but what's that got to do with anything?

KOOP: Well, that's what our source is talking about . . that that's where you befriended Scaife . .we're not sure . . .

CONWAY: (ALMOST SHOUTING) No. But I never met, I don't , I don't know Scaife, I've only seen, y'know I've only read about him.

KOOP: Yeah. I understand . .I

CONWAY: Er, I don't know where the hell this is comin' from, it's outr...I mean

KOOP: It may be coming from Matt Drudge . ..

CONWAY (HE PAUSES) : What makes you think that?

KOOP: Well, I mean cause everyone is tying you into Drudge now . .

CONWAY: That's ridiculous.

KOOP: You know, well, I

CONWAY: I mean . .

KOOP: I wouldn't question whether it's ridiculous, believe me. Uh, We're just trying to get...

CONWAY: I don't know . . What journal are you? I don't even know what you are . .

KOOP: We're a web magazine that has a three and a half million circulation.

CONWAY: Ahhh, I've never seen you

KOOP: Well just pop it up

CONWAY: Well, that's...that's all I have to say about this; Okay?

KOOP: Alright, sorry.

Hey, he sounds truthful to me, and certainly not like anyone who'd try to corner the President of the United States by giving legal tips to Paula Jones. But who knows. I never got to ask him. I guess he thought American Politics Journal wasn't worth it, or he got scared that what he said would be up on the Net in minutes.

One thing is for sure. The law firm he works for deals with tobacco clients similar to those of Ken Starr's firm from which Starr still earns million while prosecuting everyone but the President he was assigned to investigate -- won't like what he's into.

But I digress. We were looking at the Scaife-Conway connection for a specific reason. Why? Well let's look at what Scaife does with his spare time:

Take the conservative "think tanks" like Haley Barbour's bogus National Policy Forum. Many right-wing think tanks have sprung up during the last decades. The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and The Center for Strategic and International Studies are the big three.

But many more right wing institutes, committees, and "centers" have been spawned including the Cato, Manhattan, Lehrman, Hudson, Shavano, Pacific, Sequoia, Freedom, Competitive Enterprise, Present Danger, Survival of a Free Congress, For the Free World, Foreign Policy Analysis, Contemporary Studies, Humane Studies, Study of Public Choice, Study of American Business, Public Policy, Judicial Studies, Political Economy Research Center; Reason Foundation; Washington, American, Capital, and Mountain States legal foundation; Ethics and Public policy Center; the National Center for Policy Analysis; the National Institute for Public Policy; and the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy.

It takes your breath away.

And the money! My Lord. Between them the divvy up a few hundred million dollars ponied by people like Dick Scaife and right wing fanatics whose only goal in life seems to be to destroy Democrats and liberal ideals.

"You get what you pay for," said conservative 70's thinker Irving Kristol and effectively argued that if businessmen wanted intellectual horsepower, they would have to open their pocketbooks.

In other words - buy the brains and fool the public.

They did.

And Hillary Clinton ain't far from right when she says it's a conspiracy.

A small group of wealthy right-wing foundations funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, The Coors family and others, have become bent on peddling their influence on policy makers.

The idea? To create a "moral" and intellectual atmosphere for conservative beliefs that non-reactive but rather pro-active. Conservatives would have to stop telling people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and instead promise a wonderful future.

Scaife and his pals have tried to do this, and well. But the fact is that it's the same old story that keeps seeping through -- "Every man for himself - Damn the weak" and America is learning fast this isn't American.

One man, George Gilder provided the fodder for thoughtful conservatism, 20 years ago, which was soon sullied by the likes of Newt Gingrich, the freshman ultra-conservative class of the Congress of '94 and others.

Instead of adopting Gilder's approach that conservatism meant watching out for each other to assure general prosperity, as he wrote in "Wealth and Poverty" - these "new" conservatives began to erode basic government-funded programs providing safety nets for the disadvantaged.

They claimed it was for "their own good", but missed the point entirely. Then men like Scaife began funding nuts like Chris Ruddy and other conspiracists who say the "know" Bill and Hillary had Vince Foster murdered. Lately, it is rumored that Scaife pays renegade "journalist" Matt Drudge's legal bills. Drudge is being sued by Sid Blumenthal for writing a piece claiming Blumenthal beat his wife - or some such.

Gilder also claimed that big tax cuts would trigger a huge outburst of altruism and giving by the rich benefiting from same. Sure. We remember Bush's Thousand point of light that never illuminated.

Gilder's prediction has not been the case although America remains the most giving nation on earth. As Ayn Rand put it in her book "For the New Intellectual," 'Some of the greatest atrocities perpetrated in the history of mankind were done so in the name of altruism."

And atrocities there are. From the rape of fine affirmative action programs to the transformation of welfare to slavefare which Republicans conveniently label "workfare." This has created a young generation of minorities and underprivileged youth who have given up all hope of success and mock their "opportunity" to work for less than $200 a week at their local MacDonalds.

Conservative think tanks became income providers for intellectual converts. The American Enterprise Institute was a nursery to Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Michael Novak, Ben Wattenberg, and others who wasted no opportunity to point out that they had moved from the liberal to the conservative side.

Other converts included Max Kampelman, the general counsel to the "Committee on the Present Danger" (now a special arms negotiator), who had himself been a conscientious objector during the Second World War.

Playing to the overbloated egos of journalists, the new conservatives began to woo them by inviting them to conferences and colloquia as participants ( a big mistake) and provided other services like messengers, free research for reporters and a host of other goodies. Even the style of conservative "think" writing is laid back and relaxed in contrast to the overtechnical style of liberal think tanks such as Brookings.

One need only compare the boring blandness of THE NATION with the excitingly misleading headlines of THE WASHINGTON TIMES to realize that conservatives are outgunning the liberals even on the information front.

It's not that we don't admire some conservatives spawned from these think tanks. We agree, for instance with Jeanne Kirkpatrick's remarks about the Carter Administration's refusal to bail out the Shah or Iran and other despots loyal to America. She said something like, "We shouldn't be so choosy about who are allies are." Yes. That goes for Marcos too.

The Heritage Foundation is the King of spin and fundraising. It recognized early that foundations ignored the average citizen and it put programs in place that pushed its ideas and ideals to the average Joe through the distribution of finished articles preaching smaller government and lower taxes to small newspapers who could not afford editorial writers. It worked.

Who should pop up at Heritage but Dick Scaife. Heritage's largest source of money--providing at least $5 million over the past decade -- has been Richard Mellon Scaife, a great-grandson of the banker Thomas Mellon. From a personal fortune estimated at $300 million Scaife hands out about $10 million a year to "conservative causes" through the Carthage, Allegheny, and Sarah Scaife foundations.

But he also hands out money to insipid writers out to get Democrat politicians and Democrat-appointed department heads and cabinet officers. Scaife will not speak to reporters and cursed out the only good biographer on him when she tried to interview him.

In short he's gone "one step beyond" the original idea. A move that will cost him dearly in the future.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies is another Scaife favorite. It focuses on foreign affairs and snobbery. Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and James Schlesinger are "senior scholars-statesmen in residence."

CSIS simply floods the media with it's people. 14 years ago it was already sending its minions on more than 2,500 media appearances. It also supplies journalists with instant access to top retired officials. They push their stuff from NY to L.A. on the nations airways, and at your expense.

But CSIS is also linked to Georgetown University, a Jesuit school with tough ties. It also acts for the State Department hosting forums for visiting foreign dignitaries, ambassadors and the like -- especially the unimportant ones that State can't seem to handle or wants to.

Who pops up? Scaife again. He's given CSIS at least $9 million in the past 12 years.

Scaife has his strings on the Cato Institute as well.

Cato was once a creature of the near useless Libertarian Party, whose presidential candidate managed to win one percent of the vote in 1980. The Libertarian Party believes that government should simply disappear. It vowed to abolish the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, Social Security, and public schools as far back as the 80s. It told voters they should get together and "hire" a military if they wanted to be defended.

In short, they are Twilight Zoners.

Cato bolted from the Libertarians at that point but continues to say that almost all government regulation should end.

Scaife is also a major sponsor of Cato, but he claims that his money is spent only on economic studies.

The biggest player in the "distribution" of the conservative ideal is Richard Larry, who sources tell us he merely carries out the wishes of Dick Scaife. Larry is the grant director of the Sarah Scaife Foundation - the richest of the Scaife quartet of foundations funding everything from the "arts" to right wing conspiracists.

Scaife is a principal donor to Heritage, CSIS, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Cato, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, The American Spectator magazine, the Committee on the Present Danger, the Manhattan Institute, the Capital Legal Foundation, the Reason Foundation, and other new and some quite weird conservative think tanks and foundations.

Scaife's name is synonymous with many other names that keeping popping up all over the ultra-right map.

As Gregg Easterbrook wrote more than a decade ago in his piece - "Ideas Move Nations"; for The Atlantic Monthly:

"The regularity with which the same thinkers' names appear on think-tank rosters is as remarkable as the regularity with which Scaife and Olin are listed as donors. Kristol, the editor of The Public Interest is also the publisher of the new neo-conservative journal The National Interest, a member of the board of editors for Regulation, an AEI fellow, a Hudson fellow, and an adviser to the Lehrman and Manhattan institutes. Midge Decter is a Heritage trustee, an Ethics and Public Policy Center director, a member of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a Hudson fellow, and an advisors-board member for The National Interest. Martin Anderson, of Hoover, is also a Hudson fellow, a Reason adviser, and a member of the board of the CPD. Michael Novak has affiliations with AEI, the CPD, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and Hudson; Ernest Lefever with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the CPD, and Heritage; Thomas Gale Moore, of Hoover and recently named to the Council of Economic Advisers, with AEI, Cato, and Reason. James Buchanan, of the Center for Study of Public choice, is also an adjunct scholar at AEI and Cato, and an adviser to Hoover, Reason, and the Political Economy Research Center. The leaders of the three major conservative think tanks -- William Baroody, of AEI, Edwin Feulner, of Heritage, and David Abshire, of CSIS -- once served together as aides to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird."

The same names. Over and over again. Is it too much to guess that the so-called conservative groundswell was, has been, and is, managed by just a single small group of pseudo-intellectuals who know well who owns the ball?

We think not.

What we witness now is a nation managed by sheep that build on each other's ill-gained preconceptions and reject anything and anyone that doesn't fit in their own ideological cookie jar.

Professional spinmeisters call it the art of "Directed Conclusions."

For instance, Cato won't do any study that calls for a government program. One analyst lost his job at CSIS after he published a book critical of Reagan's Star wars, the study of which is worth millions to think tanks that march to the military drummer. (CSIS denies there was any connection.) The American Enterprise Institute is simply a whore for corporate sponsors and publishes nothing that might upset the men and women in the board rooms across America.

Heritage, for its part, never breaks ranks with its own and does not criticize those programs requiring government subsidies when the recipient is a large corporate sponsor of theirs -- most notably Dow Chemical and the synfuels corporation.

These foundations have gone so far, so fast, that they have actually changed the language of discussion. We no longer hear the word "greed," but instead the word "vision" when we talk about business and businessmen. We no longer hear the word "opportunity" when discussing affirmative action but rather the terms "lowering standards," "sorry admissions formulae" and the like.

Scaife and his cohorts have achieved their goals. America is a market economy, no more, no less and anything getting in her way is taboo.

Thus, in a way Dick Scaife and men and women like him have accomplished much. But Scaife seems to want to go farther. He seems to want to block any chance for a liberal idea or a liberal candidate to hold office. Look at Bill Clinton. In the late 1970s Clinton would have been described as a moderate Republican, yet Clinton is still too liberal for Scaife and so he goes about his business of feeding sharks like Matt Drudge, Chris Ruddy, and - until recently - the American Spectator Magazine -- a journal of outlandish conservative bullshit.

It is no coincidence that Scaife funds Pepperdine University so it will be ready to receive Kenneth Starr. It is no coincidence that Scaife has his fingers in every White House scandal using "reporters" from spurious "journals" and magazines, newspapers and electronic media to lambaste the President and anyone Scaife doesn't like. It is no coincidence that Scaife funds or directs his foundations and other money sources to fund insane writers who "fantasize as fact."

The only reason we asked Attorney Conway about Dick Scaife was because Scaife seems to be under every Clinton scandal rock under which one looks. For instance, the new leak from a "Secret Service" agent - who was not a secret service agent at all but merely a uniformed White House guard - gave his first interview on a Pittsburgh radio station. Now we do know that Dick Scaife "owns" a lot of media resources, but we're not sure he owns that radio station to which the "loyal" secret service guy reported that Monica Lewinsky came to White House and spent time alone with President Clinton. Was it some sort of national pride that brought the White House guard to the fore, or a cash gift from Dick Scaife?

Maybe neither. We'll never know.

Back to our friend George Conway III who is said to have counseled Paula Jones more than once and to be the Deep Throat to Matt Drudge.

Chris Taylor of Time Magazine wrote about him , last week:

"And as for that "right-wing conspiracy" Hillary Clinton spoke of Tuesday, Clinton's attorney has subpoenaed a conservative New York lawyer, George Conway III, to testify on his connections to the Paula Jones and Lewinsky cases. The New York Observer reports that Conway is believed to be the key to a "scandal-mongering apparatus bent on destroying the Clinton presidency." If that even comes close to being proved, the President could turn the entire crisis to his advantage".

And Jonathan Broder writing in SALON writes:

"Last week Liesl Noll, a spokeswoman for the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, confirmed to Salon that a process server had tried to deliver a subpoena to one of its lawyers, George Conway III, but was unsuccessful because Conway was away. Conway's secretary told Salon that he was on vacation and unreachable. Conway did not return several messages left by Salon on his voice mail, and his whereabouts remain a mystery.

Noll confirmed that Conway, a 34-year-old conservative activist, had recently informed the firm's stunned partners that he had worked for free and without their knowledge on the Jones case, writing the crucial Supreme Court brief that successfully argued Jones' suit should proceed despite the fact that Clinton was still in office.

... For example, the White House strongly suspects that Conway delivered portions of Linda Tripp's tapes to Newsweek and put Tripp in touch with her current lawyer, James Moody, another conservative activist."

We also suspect that Starr, and Jones' lawyers - perhaps in concert with Conway - may have schemed together to jump Lewinsky at a suburban shopping mall hotel on the 16th of January in order to scare the bejeezus out of her and admit she did have an affair with the President and that he counseled her to lie under oath.

We wonder if Conway has accepted Bennett's subpoena as yet. At least he was in his office today.

But by far the most damaging story on George Conway was by Joe Conason of the newly chic New York Observer. Conason is a terrific reporter and has a way with words. He reports that Conway is a secret adviser to Paula Jones and evaded the Bennett subpoena by suddenly "disappearing" on the 26th of January.

We called a lot of people at Wachtell today.

Non-partner sources within Wachtell Lipton told us that Conway is about to be called on the carpet for his concealment of what Conason says was a four year stint as Jones very private counsel. One associate told us that his days may be numbered at the firm.

We hope not. Even if he did counsel Jones, it's his right to do so.

It's the possibility of collusion between Starr, Conway, and the other lawyers on the Jones team -- who are weak in comparison to Conway -- which concerns this publication.

Some have drawn the conclusion that they must be in cahoots because Starr and Conway work for the same clients - Big Tobacco, and both did briefs to the court arguing denial of presidential immunity from civil lawsuits. They won, and did the nation a great disservice.

We can't draw that conclusion. Tobacco companies hire a lot of lawyers. Just because they share clients doesn't mean Starr and Conway were plotting together.

Sure, it could be. But Conway was forthcoming to us -- at least about Scaife. If he lied, it will come out. If he didn't, then drawing such conclusions would make us as silly as Drudge himself.

The Observer claims that Conway is the chief source of leaks to Drudge - a mean spirited nobody - who has become infamous since he purportedly libeled Mr. Blumenthal. The Observer also claims that it was Conway who gave Drudge his "exclusive" on the "presidential privates" claim that Paula Jones made and later dropped.

According to the Observer Drudge admitted that Conway was one of his sources and that he also spoke to book agent Lucianne Goldberg and Linda Tripp ---for dirt. Drudge also claims to talk to Starr's people and the FBI.

Ha, ha, ha. Sure. We can just imagine. We're surprised Conason fell for it.

Drudge told the Observer: "I will tell you this. I have had multiple sources for this [story] — and I know this disturbs you — some of them quite close to the action that would surprise you. And I'm not going to say they're Tripp's friends, I'm not going to say it's Tripp herself, I'm not going to say it's Starr's people, I'm not going to say any of that. All the potential for that exists, including F.B.I. people."

The words of a sociopath.

Where Conway, Drudge and Starr may meet their maker is the place where the Justice Department asks this simple question of all of them:

"Who knew about the illegal wire taps and taping of Monica Lewinsky and when did they know it."

Drudge may be off the hook under his putative shield as a "reporter" rather than a purloiner of others work, but Starr and Conway would be caught in a conspiracy to violate federal and state wiretap laws.

Not a pretty picture.

By the way. Where is the Justice Department on this one anyway?

Out to lunch, we'd say -- especially on Starr's role wiring the bovine Tripp to entrap her "friend" Monica.

How Starr sleeps at night is a nagging question.