How times change.
Newsmax started life in 1997 under the editorship of Christopher Ruddy and the funding of Richard Mellon Scaife with the express purpose of attacking the Clinton presidency and cheerleading for his impeachment. But Ruddy and Scaife began changing their tune about President Clinton a few years back, with Ruddy even admitting that “Clinton wasn’t such a bad president.”
That detente has now moved to a whole new level: Ruddy has accompanied Clinton on a trip to Africa, and is blogging about it at the Clinton Foundation’s website.
No, really. A July 18 Newsmax article explains it:
Newsmax’s CEO Christopher Ruddy has joined former President Bill Clinton on his current mission to Africa.
Last week, President Clinton and his delegation arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of a 10-day, five-nation tour across the African continent.
The Clinton Foundation sponsors programs that support sustainable development, education, and healthcare working with individuals, private business, and local government.
“President Clinton and his foundation have made a huge difference in their private-public programs,” Ruddy said. “These programs have helped millions, have been extremely cost-effective and help build bridges between the United States and emerging countries.”
Ruddy’s Clinton Foundation blog post is the kind of fluffy promotion that is the last thing you’d expect from Ruddy on the subject of Clinton:
The Clinton Foundation demonstrates that public-private partnerships and strategic engagement of private citizens, community members, and local governments can achieve great results in health care. And as I saw firsthand today in Mozambique, this work is innovative in its scope and in its purpose – which is to ensure governments can own and maintain their own health care systems without further reliance on aid. I applaud the Clinton Foundation for bringing together groups and individuals from all sides of the political spectrum to build a world that’s more equal, more sustainable, and that benefits us all.
Quite the stunning turnaround.