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On The Front Lines

oldSpeak, online journal of The Rutherford Institute, hosts interview with columnist and commentator Arianna Huffington

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--oldSpeak, an online publication of The Rutherford Institute, hosts this week an exclusive interview with nationally syndicated columnist and political commentator Arianna Huffington. Huffington, who took tough stands on gun control, gay rights, and abortion as a Republican in the early 1990s, turned heads in recent years by registering as an independent and speaking out against government and corporate corruption. In her interview with Institute President John W. Whitehead, Huffington discusses her striking political transformation, her recent outspokenness, and why she believes ordinary Americans are capable of effecting social change. The interview is available at www.rutherford.org.

Born in Greece and educated at Cambridge, Huffington apparently never feared taking a controversial stand in matters of public debate. Her first book, The Female Woman, published in 1974, made waves by attacking feminism, and her 1988 biography, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer, depicted the painter as a brute toward women and became an influential bestseller. As a Republican, she took principled stands on issues in the early 1990s. She also kept herself in the spotlight through her involvement with rich and powerful men, including media mogul Mort Zuckerman, former California governor Jerry Brown, and her husband Michael Huffington, heir to the Huffco oil fortune, whom she divorced shortly after his failed Senate race in 1994. In 1996, Huffington reinvented herself as a political entertainer of sorts, teaming up with Al Franken to cover the presidential election for Comedy Central. Her appearances on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" made her a full-fledged Washington celebrity. Huffington's recent columns and books criticize the corporate and political elite she once rubbed shoulders with. In How to Overthrow the Government (2001) and Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed & Political Corruption Are Undermining America (2003), she does no less than call for an overthrow of our current political system. Last fall, she spearheaded "The Detroit Project," a controversial national ad campaign that connects driving gas-guzzling SUVs to funding corrupt Middle Eastern regimes and terrorism.

oldSpeak is dedicated to publishing interviews, articles and commentary on subjects often overlooked by the mainstream media in the areas of politics, arts and culture, law and religion. The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.


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Email: Nisha N. Mohammed

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