What's in a Murdoch-Clinton Alliance? Something for Both Sides
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
Published: May 10, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 9 — Strengthening a pragmatic rapprochement, Rupert Murdoch has agreed to give a fund-raiser this summer for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the latest sign of cooperation between the conservative media mogul and the Democratic lawmaker who has often been a prime target of his newspaper and television outlets.
Asked about her relationship with Mr. Murdoch, Mrs. Clinton described him as simply "my constituent," and she played down the significance of the fund-raiser. Both sides said that Mr. Murdoch and Mrs. Clinton were joining forces for the good of New York, where Mr. Murdoch's $6 billion News Corporation employs about 5,000 workers.
"I am very gratified that he thinks I am doing a good job," Mrs. Clinton said in the Capitol on Tuesday, according to a transcript made available by her office after word of the fund-raising event was first reported by The Financial Times.
Yet the developing relationship between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Murdoch — who has built an empire in part on the strength of media outlets such as Fox News and The New York Post that delight in skewering the Clintons — has drawn special attention, perplexing some political analysts and infuriating some liberals already suspicious of Mrs. Clinton's centrist positioning. Although she is ostensibly raising money for her re-election to the Senate this year, she is widely considered to be laying the groundwork for a presidential bid in 2008.
"The brazenness of this move is almost too much to stomach," wrote David Sirota, a liberal commentator, on his blog. "Here you have a leading Democratic U.S. senator engaging in a 'mating ritual' with the head of the news network that has overtly worked to systematically destroy both the Democratic Party and her own husband's administration."
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