In the 1990s, Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife provided at least $1.8 million to fund the “Arkansas Project,” a conspiracy to dig up dirt on Bill and Hillary Clinton in their home state. The project was successful in that it eventually led to the snaring of Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in a perjury trap, and their sex lie under oath led to his impeachment.

Another result of the Arkansa Project was that it softened support for Clinton’s would-be successor, Vice Pres. Al Gore, thus paving the way for the Bush administration and six diasastrous years of conservatives’ corrupt control of the government, as well as the war in Iraq, which has been called the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history.

Now, however, an aide to Scaife says the reclusive billionaire has changed his mind about Bill Clinton:

Christopher Ruddy, who once worked full-time for Mr. Scaife investigating the Clintons and now runs a conservative online publication he co-owns with Mr. Scaife, said, “Both of us have had a rethinking.”

“Clinton wasn’t such a bad president,” Mr. Ruddy said. “In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today.”

The purpose of the Arkansas campaign was to hobble the Clinton presidency by spreading lies, half-truths and rumors about the Clintons. According to sources that include the invaluable, “Hunting of the Presidency,” by Joe Conanson and Gene Lyons, the Arkansas Project operated out of the offices of the American Spectator magazine, a mouthpiece for rightwing ideology. Another good source for this story is David Brock, whose book, “Blinded by the Right,” describes how he worked as a “hit man,” writing deliberately false news stories about the Clintons’ personal lives at the behest of American Spectator and its editor-in-chief, Emmett Tyrell Jr.

(Brock has repented and now runs the liberal watchdog organization, Media Matters for America.)

The administrator of Scaife’s funding for the Arkansas Project, according to these and other sources, was Ted Olson, a longtime pal of Whitewater inquisitor Ken Starr. There is much speculation, along with some evidence, that Olson or his minions fed Starr’s Whitewater investigation information collected by the Arkansas Project. This connection was a key element of the “vast rightwing conspiracy” Hillary Clinton referred to during her appearance on the Today Show on January 27, 1998.

Olson’s late wife Barbara was one of the rightwing blondes in the 1990s that included Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway, who used their virulent hatred of the Clintons to became media stars. Barbara Olson wrote an anti-Hillary screed titled, “Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton.” (She died onboard the plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.)

In 2000, Ted Olson argued for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Bush v. Gore at the Supreme Court, thus delivering the presidency to the man who will forever be known as the Worst President Ever. Olson was rewarded by being named Bush’s first solicitor general, a post once held by his friend, Ken Starr.

Rightwingers like to blame the September 11 attacks on Pres. Clinton, saying he was distracted by his personal problems. This is bull, of course. But if it were true, the real culprits would include Scaife, Olson and Tyrrell, who drummed up moral outrage about the president’s peccadillos. Other presidents, including the current president’s father, have reportedly had affairs while in office without the intrusion of public scrutiny.

Now that Scaife has seen the light, it seems that the least he could do is offer a full accounting of what was done in his name, and with his money, in connection with the “get Clinton” project.