So Much For Family Values
by Elisa
Wed Feb 27, 2008 at 12:00:09 PM PDT
I love Vanity Fair for the people profiles. They are so bitchy, so unfair -- and such guilty pleasure.
Most recently, it uncovered the details of the bitter divorce between billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and his second wife "Ritchie." In case you are wondering, Scaife is the one who bankrolled and peddled -- often false -- stories about the Clintons, including "Troopergate" and "Whitewatergate." He funded the think tanks that coined such Republican marketing terms like "family values," and was the central figure in what Hillary (rightfully) called, the "vast right-wing conspiracy."
So how does Mr. Family Values stack up in his own life? He courted wife Ritchie while both were married to other people. (Of course.) They are now divorcing because he was caught with another woman, who happens to have a police record. (Of course!) The Scaifes did not sign a prenuptial agreement, which means all kinds of stuff have come out, including Ritchie's erratic behavior. (!!) Here is a glimpse of it:
Ritchie once kicked Dick in the crotch, according to a friend, and his testicles swelled to such a size that he had to be taken to the emergency room. Asked about the incident, Dick chuckles and says, almost plaintively, "I'd forgotten." Ritchie issues another denial: "I don't remember ever kicking him!"
...Yet Ritchie, by many accounts, has the more unpredictable temper. Several associates and friends of the Scaifes shudder when they speak of "Ritchie moments." These are high-decibel events--such as the afternoon on Nantucket when she allegedly warned the staff that she would walk into the ocean if a misplaced set of winter slipcovers for the summer furniture wasn't located right now.
"I think this is just the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Ritchie says. "Please. Do I look like somebody who'd walk into the ocean over curtains? Please."
Jewelry, Dick says, reliably restored her equilibrium. After an ultimatum delivered in the kitchen of their Pebble Beach estate, he bought her a ring from Borsheim's, Warren Buffett's Omaha jewelry story--a $600,000, 10-carat diamond that, Scaife recalls, was delivered to his office "by a very nice lady from Rhodesia, very pretty, with two armed guards."
Nice. But let me assure you, "Dick" is just as likable. SNARK. He had his wife arrested for trespassing when she busted him and the "other woman," Tammy Vasco. Later on, he had a sign made and placed on his property, "Wife And Dog Missing--Reward For Dog."
I just find this all amusing from the "philanthropist" who has spent millions of dollars helping build the Republican Party as we know it today. But as you can see, Scaife is no regular church goer. As I have always suspected, he decided to help the Republican Party as a way to protect his assets, which were largely acquired through inheritance, according to Vanity Fair.
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