Did Clinton Adviser Slur Indianans or Is This A Dirty Trick?

In a political season that has been strife with scandals and political dirty tricks, the question of the day seems to be, did a Clinton adviser, Mickey Kantor, call Indianans "worthless white niggers" or is this a another dirty political trick?

[Update] Had to replace the video with a shorter version because YouTube removed the other one. Mickey Kantor served as campaign chairman during Clinton's 1992 run for the White House and is an informal advisor to Hillary Clinton for her campaign. The clip shows James Carville, George Stephanopolous, and Mickey Kantor conferring over polling results for Indiana The recent kickup in the news and blogosphere is the question of what he says on this video and the fact that now, via Huffington Post, he claims the video itself is doctored and is planning legal action. After having listened to the video a dozen times, it is clear that he said "those people are sh*t", referring to Indianans or pollsters , that much is easily heard and he even says excuse me when he remembers that the camera is running, but the rest is debatable at the very least. The clip is from The War Room and is 15 years old and according to Cantor, the statement never took place at all and he goes on to say, "Indiana was not even on our radar screen. And I was talking about the polling and not the people... If you look at The War Room, this is not the way Carville or George interpreted my statement. This is frankly libelous."

Kantor said he was in the process of contacting "the best" libel lawyers to approach YouTube.com about the process of removing the video from its site. He suggested that The Huffington Post, too, should not print even his defense, as it would be an advancement of a non-story.

"I don't need to be defended," he wrote. "When you write it, what you are doing is extended the libel."

By the very link to the Huffington Post piece, you can see they went ahead with the story anyway. This clip has only been out since this morning and already it has made the rounds through the blogosphere and promises to become another firestorm. Furthermore, the director of The War Room, D.A. Pennebaker, also says the clip was doctored, but added as an update to that Politico piece, they say they 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." The original copy of the 1993 film The War Room, to which this clip was taken from (found at the 4:40 mark) can be found at YouTube. Listen to one, listen to both, compare them, listen again and judge for yourself what was said, what wasn't, if it is real or if you feel it is doctored.