2008 Today in Campaign Hoaxes
posted by on May 2 at 11:09 AM
That video linked in the Morning News is a fake. From the Huffington Post:
Mickey Kantor, who served as campaign chairman during Clinton’s 1992 run for the White House and says he has offered help and advice to Sen. Clinton, insisted that the tape was a fraud and that he was exploring legal steps against the individual who posted it online.“I’ve never used that word in my entire life, ever, under any circumstance, ever,” an angry Kantor told The Huffington Post, citing his and his parent’s work fighting for civil rights. “I have listened to [the video] and so have you. You can’t tell what it is I’m saying in that second sentence, you can’t decipher that.”
Indeed, a review of the original copy of the 1993 film The War Room, from which the excerpt was taken (around the 4:40 mark) is virtually inaudible. The sound suggests, if anything, that instead of saying “How would you like to be a worthless white n****r?” Kantor says, “How would you like to be in the White House right now?”
The director of the film, moreover, says that Kantor never uttered those words. “He does not say that. He does not say that,” D.A. Pennebaker told Ben Smith.
Meanwhile, a blogger at Daily Kos thinks it’s all an elaborate ploy to make Obama look bad:
The video clip of Kantor talking to Carville and Stephanopolous is most likely intended to get Obama supporters to embrace a fake smear. It’s an old trick people and it works.The story isn’t going to be that a Clinton aide back in 92 insulted Indiana. The story is going to be that Obama supporters pushed a fake video trying to smear Hillary.
This is classic Rovian shit. We all use the phrase and talk about the evils of Rove but we always forget what that actually means.
(Via Sullivan.)
Everything is an elaborate ploy to make Obama look bad.
Shouldn't Erica's post below also be called out as the hoax that it is. The same footage, from the side, showed Obama was scratching his face with multiple fingers.
I can't believe we had a bunch of arguments about how many fingers the man scratched his face with.
And then I can't believe that a Real News Editor!!! discovered it just today and thought it was actual news.
I still buy it. Why was he whispering it as an aside if he was saying "How would you like to be in the White House right now?" Why did he curse audibly and then look up at the camera and apologize, and then continue in a much lower tone. Look, there are a lot of people who helped in the civil rights movement and were not racist and would never call a black person that word. But their contempt for poor white trash is real, and I have no problem imagining this guy calling Hoosiers that.
Another point I'd make as a close reading of the clip. The reaction on Carville and Stephanopoulos's faces seems to be in line with what I've seen when you hear someone utter something beneath contempt, but aren't in the mood to be confrontational. That, or they're just absorbed in the numbers.
@4-agreed. plus he still said indiana residents are shit. that was audible. anyway, why would this be on obama's head? couldnt some group who just doesnt like hrc release this w/out the mind of slandering obama?
Everybody knows that Osama is a lying, sack-o'-shit scumbag, so this shouldn't surprise anyone.
Apparently both the director and the editor say it's a fake. So @4 this means that in some vault somewhere there exists: original footage, shot lists, transcriptions, paper edits, rough cuts, copious editing notes, et cetera. All pointing to the original dialog, proving exactly what was said. Short of real ministry of truth expertise, You couldn't convincingly fake all this documentation if you wanted to, especially with a famous documentary filmmaker.
Who you gonna believe - your eyes & ears or the word of a guy who made stultifying concert films like "Jimi Plays Yahtzee"?
It's sad how desperate the Hils backers are ...
Oh no! Obama AND Clinton supporters have penetrated my aluminum foil cap!
Somewhere on youtube I watched the much longer original version. In it it is clear that Kantor is calling the pollsters shit, not the people of Indiana. It is also clear that he's commenting on how upset the Whitehouse will be at how well Perot did when he says, how would you like to be in the Whitehouse tonight.
Don't misunderstand me, James Caravelle is a scumbag- Dismissing Paula Jones as what you get when you drag a $100 bill through a trailer park (After Monica can anyone doubt her story?) Stephanopolis is clearly unethical for carrying on as an "objective" newsman while interacting with the wife of his buddy, but in this is made up and whoever did it did not do Obama any favors.
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