Is there a political romance brewing between two of the most powerful players on the opposite sides of the national scene, asked the New York Observer as it contemplated the friendly relationship between New York Senator Hillary Clinton and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
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The Observer's Ben Smith writes that the possibility of an alliance between "two of the most powerful and guarded figures in the world — is beginning to whet the appetites of the chattering classes."
Though not yet cooing at each other, Hillary and Rupert are speaking softly.
"Senator Clinton respects him and thinks he is smart and effective," Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, told the Observer.
"Rupert has respect for her political skills and for the hard work that she's done as a Senator," Gary Ginsberg, an executive vice president at Murdoch's News Corp., confided to Smith.
Adding smoke to the glowing embers of gossip surrounding the two is the softer tone the usually anti-Hillary New York Post has adopted toward her, along with Murdoch's retaining of Hillary adviser Howard Wolfson.
Murdoch's News Corp. hired Wolfson's s firm, the Glover Park Group, to run an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against a change in the Nielsen ratings system sought by the Fox television network.
Smith notes: "The Post's feared gossip page, Page Six, has been a regular outlet for rumors about Bill Clinton's private life and for unflattering tidbits about both Clintons. But last week the page landed a solid blow against the anti-Clinton right, eviscerating journalist Ed Klein's new book, 'The Truth About Hillary', in a well-reported item that tracked down two women whom Mr. Klein suggested had had affairs with Mrs. Clinton. Page Six dismissed the rumor."
According to Hillary's White House chief ideological officer, Sidney Blumenthal, "The Page Six trashing of Ed Klein's wretched little piece of sewage was a very interesting article. We won't know for a while whether or not it was assigned, but it appears that [Page Six] sought the story."
Other signs of a pending political union between the two:
A reportedly "cordial" 2002 lunch between Murdoch and the senator at News Corp.'s private dining room at its Rockefeller Center headquarters.
Bill Clinton's "energetic" courting of Murdoch and his son, Lachlan, who runs the Post. Clinton toured the Post's newsroom in January 2003. Smith reported that Bill Clinton has lunched alone with the senior Murdoch, and this June he delivered a recorded tribute at the birthday party of the former Republican operative who runs Fox News, Roger Ailes.
"I know ... you're thinking somebody put the wrong video in the machine," he reportedly began. "I am especially grateful that Roger didn't work in the 1992 campaign. I mean, who knows how different history would have been if he had. I would have been spared all of his barbs in his later life as a media mogul, but I wouldn't have had the chance to be president."
Then there is Hillary's sudden propensity to hook up with such former foes as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who managed the House's impeachment trial of her husband, and even Newt Gingrich.
Murdoch's reported willingness to cozy up to Hillary has failed to surprise those familiar with the international media baron.
Speaking of a potential alliance between the two opposites, Nicholas Wapshott, the longtime New York bureau chief for Murdoch's Times of London, told Smith: "It makes perfect sense. Although Rupert is widely assumed to be an ideological creature solely of the right, the fact is that he's a businessman before he is an ideologist, and he likes to be with a winner."
"They're both probably about as canny as each other, and they're about as inscrutable as each other," Wapshott, who was at The Times of London when Murdoch arrived in 1980, added. "They are very similar – both hard-nosed characters. They would understand each other perfectly. Absolutely perfectly."
Could Murdoch actually endorse Hillary for 2008?
Smith notes that one major obstacle of such a move is Fox News.
The news network, he says, "is the stumbling block to any suggestion that Mr. Murdoch could really pivot toward Mrs. Clinton if she is the Democrats' 2008 nominee. A huge profit center for News Corp., Fox's hostility and suspicion toward Mrs. Clinton is a staple for loyal viewers. In April, the network brought on former Clinton political adviser Dick Morris – a regular commentator on the network – to speculate about what damaging material would emerge from Mr. Klein's dirt-filled biography of Mrs. Clinton."
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