I don’t take offense at much, and I recognize that this is 16 years old, but it still gets my hackles up to see former Clinton Secretary of Commerce and current Clinton campaign advisor Mickey Kantor calling Hoosiers a bunch of “worthless white niggers” during the 1992 Clinton/Bush campaign:
Just for good measure, you have James “Richardson is Judas” Carville and George “Does Reverend Wright love America as much as you” Stephanopolous in the room with him. You know, if we’re playing “stupid things said by people the Presidential candidates know.” Or does that only work with Obama?
Or, I could go into Evan Bayh concern-troll mode and express “concern” about what the Republicans would do with such a quote in November.
Update Kantor says that he never used those words and the suggestion is that he’s saying “How would you like to be in the White House right now?”
Of course, if we go with the Evan Bayh Concern Troll Test ™, it doesn’t matter whether Kantor has a low opinion of Hoosiers and even less whether Clinton herself has a low opinion of Hoosiers. What’s really important is whether Republicans will use this against Clinton in the fall.
Update 2 The Indy Star has an article up saying that the movie’s producer is saying that the clip is a hoax. But is this enough for Hillary Clinton to put the issue behind her? We’ll be running the clip over and over and over and asking that question for the next 3 weeks.
Hmmmm. I hadn’t seen that before. And this from a guy who knew he was being taped? Who says coasters are smarter?
Dang, Carville and Stephanopolous looked young.
Wow, that was fast! Who says the NSA only answers to Bush?
He still says “those people are shit,” and his interpretation to the contrary, it seems to me that he is talking about the people of Indiana.
Hmm. Although your link is broken Doug, I did find the alleged offending video through the Huffington Post. Although I’ve got serious Clinton fatigue right now I might have to give Kantor the benefit of the doubt on this one. The sound isn’t too hot on my computer but I had it turned up all the way & could barely hear anything Kantor said, and certainly not the N-word. I heard him say “shit” about something. If he said “these people are shit” I’m guessing he meant whatever pollsters put Bill Clinton ahead of Bush in Indiana, and he would have been correct about that!
You’re probably right, Glenn. But, I still have to suggest that we shouldn’t even have to worry about statements of past associates as being particularly relevant to whether to vote for a given candidate.
Doug,
Sorry but you need to publish an apoligy ASAP to your readership.
Check out the story over at the Huffington Post. This is a smear pure and simple. I hopefully it was done by a prankster unaffliated with Obama who’s was just wanting to stir the pot.
It is unfortunate that lots of Obama supporters fell for it and made the mistake of lending it any credence what so ever or worse passing it on.
Look I was a staunch Edwards supporter. When Edwards dropped out I briefly entertained backing Obama. As I intensived my own research, including both of Obama’s own books, and hundred articles pro and con, liberal and conservative I concluded that Obama would be a absolute disaster for the Democrats.
If people think the Rev. Wright or Bittergate hurt Obama. Or if they are in denial. Then they need to very carefully consider the details of Barack and Michele Obama’s 20 year professional and personal relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn the “ex”-weathermen terrorist radicals.
George McGovern was a trainwreck for Democrats in 1972 in large part because in spite of being a WWII war hero he could never get pass his background as having been an organizer for Henry Wallace’s left wing Progressive Party in 1948. 24 years later the Progressive Party supporters were seen as either out right commies, fellow travelers, naive or weakminded.
Having a candidate in the fall who had 20 years relationship with a couple of unrepentent 60’s radical subversives would not be a trainwreck it would be a thermonuclear appocolypse for the Democratic party. Nothing has chanced about William Ayers. For the last 20 years Ayers has been advocating turning our public school systems into “social justice” training centers using Maoist indoctrination techniques in order to brainwash them with his Anti-American Marxist idiocy.
I have been no way in favor of a Clinton Restoration. However, I am still a Democrat. I do not want to see this country suffer a 50 state landslide by “BombIran” McCain.
The updated link is to the Huffington Post article. I don’t owe anyone an apology. First I posted a link to the video along with a description of what it looked like. Then I updated it with a link to the Huffington Post, noting Kantor’s denial. I further made clear that, in a sane world, what Kantor said or didn’t say would have fuck all to do with this election since Sen. Clinton is running, not Kantor.
In a sane world, this would be about who was right about Iraq; who has the better health care policy; who would be the better leader; who would be the better administrator; and so forth.
Playing “Six Degrees of Barack Obama” isn’t a good way to pick a nominee. And, for the record, we’ve already tried the route of “let’s pick the blandest, safest, ‘most electable’ Democrat so maybe the Republicans won’t be so mean to us.” It didn’t work, and it won’t work. If they don’t have anything true to use, they’ll just make something up. The actual record is inconsequential in terms of the tactics that will be used against the Democratic nominee.
Therefore, the job at hand is to vote for whoever you think will make the better President. If you think that Ayers will have important policy making influence on an Obama Presidency, then, by all means, don’t vote for him. But, if you don’t think Ayers will matter much one way or another to an Obama Presidency, then I wouldn’t give it a lot of weight.
I think the “these people are shit” was supposed to be “these people are shitting themselves”. But I’m not sure why he leaned in and whispered something that he claims now was unoffensive. I see no reason not to believe him, though.
Regardless, it has nothing to do with anything of importance. Which is why the media should only cover it for three days, and not a moment more.
But, they shouldn’t cover it by investigating Kantor or Clinton’s opinions about Hoosiers. Instead, they should spend day after day wondering loudly if the Clinton campaign has “put this behind them” or whether “this will hurt them with voters.”
It is not fake.
II am a video editor and I was able to digitize the unedited version from youtube. The sh*t statement is there. And if you EQ (lower the hissing, raise some audio levels) the whispering, you can make out what he’s saying easier.
I’ll be honest with you, I hear “worthless white n*gger”. Not white house or anything else. Why would someone need to whisper white house on the camera?
So actually I don’t think it’s fake at all. The “doctored” version is really just enhanced. They didnt add anything.
Whatever, he still doesn’t hold Indiana in high regard.
They have to also work in the “How could Clinton spend all those years with him and never hear him allegedly/probably not ever say anything like that before?” It goes to her judgment.
“Six degrees of Separation”
Oh please!!! Now you sound like a kool-aid drinking Obamabot. You are suppose to be a hard nosed lawyer.
For over a year Obama skeptics and critics were warning folks about Rev. Wright and Obama. Everybody would have been better off if the Cable News networks would have aired the Wright videos on Youtube last December than in March. Hell anybody who read Obama’s two autobiographies would come to the conclusion that the man suffers from both a serious identity crisis and narcissism.
Anybody backing Obama after the Rev. Wright fiasco and thinking Obama is remotely electible is both delusional and guilting of advocating that the Democrats sign a suicide pact. There is simply no way to “contextualize” Rev. Wright.
You just hope and pray that Hoosier and North Carolinian Democrats have the common sense and maturity to understand.
Rev. Wright has for now only hurt Obama. If Obama loses Indiana by 12-15% as I am hoping and if North Carolina is close, or please Lord an Obama loss, hopefully Democrats will wake up in mass and declare Obama unelectable. Crushing Obama defeats in West Virginia and Kentucky followed by a defeat in Oregon should close the deal.
Because the next Obama shoe to drop will sure as hell be Ayers/Dohrn. And that scandal will impact the entire Democratic party. It will reflect badly on every Democratic offical foolish enough to have endorsed Obama. If it happens in July or August will take weeks to get the news cycle focused back on the issues. Remember McGovern/Eagleton???
Obama shows up in Denver still vying for the nomination in the midst of the Ayers /Dohrn affair in the headlines and the ANSWER and MEChista crazies protesting/rioting outside, then all we will hear about are parallels to 1968.
The evidence of the Obamas & Ayers/Dohrn relationship is very strong. Go check out Larry Johnson’s No Quarter blog. The Ayers question during the ABC debates was the first time Obama was hit with anything harder than a stale marshmellow. The look on Obama’s face you would have sworn he got hit with a claw hammer. Obama responded with a bold face lie. He dam well knows Ayers is not now an obscure English professor. Ayers today still advocates overthrow of our Democracy.
And, for the record, we’ve already tried the route of “let’s pick the blandest, safest, ‘most electable’ Democrat so maybe the Republicans won’t be so mean to us.â€
Oh Please!!! part deux.
Ok Dave if that is your attitude lets go balls out.
Barack Obama/Noam Chomsky 2008.
INDY Star has a story up that says the youtube video was doctored and the whole thing was a hoax.
llama needs a time out. Doug is not only a reasoned fellow, but it’s his damn blog. He can think and publish anything he damn well feels like.
Serously, llamajockey, what the fuck?
Ayers?
He was on a board with the guy. He was in the guy’s house once, thirty years after he was never convicted of anything.
If you haven’t figured out, some of us are mockingly calling on the media to give Clinton the Obama treatment. Your unreasoned response is to piss your pants over Ayers and his wife? Well shit, why not piss your pants over Vince Foster, Ron Brown, and Jim Guy Tucker while you’re at it? Those are actually dead bodies the Clintons had nothing to do with. They could be dug up and talked about for days or weeks, even though the Clintons had nothing to do with it. They’re less tangentially related to those people than Obama is to Ayers. And Ayers’ wife? Come on, dig deeper. I want to know the shit Obama’s mailman was into.
Of course, what do I know?
Our current president told the world that God was on board with the Iraq War. The media didn’t have much to say about our president being guided by supernatural voices.
The GOP nominee’s spiritual advisors of choice think our country exists to wipe out Islam. Or that “whore” Catholic church. Or maybe a mix of the two. And the gays. Not the gays themselves, but mostly old African-Americans who aren’t spry enough to evacuate a city (that some gays live in–see the connection?) before God wiped the city out.
Yeah, it’s exclusively Obama that has nutty minister/God issues.
Stupid media.
Maybe the same media could comment on McCain’s association with G. Gordon Liddy. I think plans to kill unfriendly newspaper columnist for his writings, or burn the Brookings Institution, and of course breaking in to political opponent’s office are kinda terroristic, right?
Then there are the Clinton Weather Underground pardons.
There’s so much to piss one’s pants over. Maybe it’s so overwhelming that it becomes more comforting to just focus on Obama’s issues, and leave the rest alone.
McCain, on Liddy’s radio show 11/7/01: “Well, you know, I’m proud of you, I’m proud of your family, and I’m proud to know your son Tom, who is a great and wonderful guy, and its always a pleasure for me to come on your program. And, congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our country great.”
That’s how he talks to unrepentant felons who commit crimes against our country, and contemplated many more. Maybe he didn’t know about Liddy’s past? Ha. Maybe the media haven’t heard of the guy? I mean, he’s not a household name like, *ahem*, William Ayers (or Ayers’ wife, Ms. Whatshername).
After a few plays it should be easy to hear the “ting on the white house” and the whisper is blatantly overdubbed. It does take a few plays. I’d go back to video editing school if were you Eddie…