Hot Air reports:
This is almost certainly a dirty trick aimed at Mickey Kantor and the Clinton campaign. Read all the way through the updates.
The Hillary Clinton campaign has run on a platform of 90’s nostalgia, but it won’t like this flashback to 1992. A video making the rounds today shows James Carville, George Stephanopolous, and Mickey Kantor conferring over polling results for Indiana. Kantor, who would become a member of Bill Clinton’s Cabinet and an adviser to Hillary now, offers a pungent view of Indiana voters that gives an idea of the contempt in which Democrats hold white, working-class Americans
WorldNetDaily reports:
Amid the run-up to the crucial Indiana Democratic presidential primary, the political blogosphere is abuzz over the anonymous release today of a clip on YouTube showing a top Hillary Clinton adviser and former Clinton administration Cabinet member dismissing citizens of the Hoosier state as "sh--" and "white ni--ers."Was the tape altered? Politico reports:
Mickey Kantor, a friend of the Clintons since the 1970s, was chairman of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, served as Secretary of Commerce under his administration and now is an adviser in Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House.
The clip begins with top 1992 campaign staffers James Carville and George Stephanopolous gleefully poring over poll figures in Midwest primary states.
I just spoke to D.A. Pennebaker, the director of "The War Room," who said his film had been doctored to produce a widely-viewed YouTube clip.
In a clip from his film on the 1992 Clinton campaign, posted to YouTube today, Clinton advisor Mickey Kantor is -- according to subtitles -- seen referring to Indianans with an expletive and to his colleague George Stephanopolous with a racial slur.
"He does not say that. He does not say that," said Pennebaker, after viewing the clip.
He said the initial expletive referred to the anticipated reaction in the Bush White House to the fact that Ross Perot's polling numbers were holding strong.
"What he says is he’s surprised Perot’s numbers are holding," said Pennebaker in a brief phone interview. "He says they must be shi**ing in the White House."
The second expletive, he said, appeared to have been entirely fabricated, with new audio dubbed onto the original movie.
Pennebaker appeared surprised and amused by the video.
"A thousand people saw that film in theaters and didn't think" the second expletive had been used, he said. "It's very clearly understandable. It's not like it was in Bulgarian."
In an earlier version posted yesterday, the clip was circulating with a subtitle indicating -- Pennebaker says inaccurately -- that Kantor had insulted Indianans; the racial slur appears to have been added to the second version.
The audio in both versions isn't clearly audible; it's possible that the subtitles are incorrect, but that the audio hasn't been deliberately altered.
UPDATE: I spoke to the editor of the video who said that he enhanced, but didn't alter, the audio in the second portion of the video.
