Following The Trail
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:19 am by Susie
Via comments, this from The Trail blog at WashPo:
A provocative video clip alleging to show a longtime friend of Hillary Clinton using a racial slur to describe the citizens of Indiana was sent to political reporters this morning by an independent public relations consultant who favors Barack Obama. Both the filmmaker and the subject of the film excerpt are calling the clip a fraud.
Eric Schmeltzer, a political and communications consultant based in N.Y., says he came across the YouTube video this morning on Digg.com, a popular content-aggregating site. The clip was posted to YouTube today by someone using the moniker “Indy007q” — clear references to both the upcoming Indiana primary on Tuesday and fictional British secret agent James Bond.
The 37-second clip was purportedly taken from “The War Room,” the 1993 documentary about Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, and displayed white subtitles over fuzzy sound. In the clip, Mickey Kantor — a long-time friend of the Clintons, former U.S. Trade Representative, Commerce Secretary and Hillary Clinton adviser — is shown speaking in the most disparaging terms of Indiana voters. At one point in the video clip, he uses the N-word to describe white Indiana voters.
Boom. Within hours, the video had gone viral, gracing the front page of the Drudge Report and topping Daily Kos’s “Recommended Diaries,” among other websites.
yeah,
but have you seen the part of the video where kantor scratches his face with his middle two fingers????
steveeboy:
Yeah, the shift starts at 9AM sharp, doesn’t it? I did the two fingers thing to a teacher once, and he noticed. Boy, was he pissed! To matters of substance:
Susie, here are some questions that oddly, or not, aren’t being addressed. (The links are in my main post here).
1. Who blogwhored the video to the A list? Amato, in his critique, says “a good friend.” Atrios says he “should have waited for Drudge.” Why didn’t he? The second question is related:
2. Why would any A lister accept the video uncritically? A transcript (at least for the Kantor “nigger” smear) only came later; and if the video had any provenance at all, it wasn’t exposed in the postings. Surely some sort of checking was done on something so potentially controversial? (And something, as well, that also may have involved copyright material?)
3. Who’s the video “editor” and why won’t they come forward? Ben Smith quotes the “editor” of the video(s)* who says (a) they are an Obama supporter and (b) the Obama campaign has nothing to do with the matter yet (c) the Obama campaign has, so far, issued a non-denial denial. There seems to be no reason to take any of this on trust.
4. Is the video “editor” JedReport, prominent Kos poster, Obama supporter, and former Hill staffer?
5. Why isn’t a “dirty trick” news? ABC’s Tapper calls the episode a “dirty trick” — and it’s hard to think of another word for faking the word “nigger” into a video, attributing it to a prominent Clinton supporter, and releasing it immediately before a crucial set of primaries.
I’m sure there are other questions, but these are the ones that come to mind now.
* There also seem to be several.
the scariest part of this is all the people who are commenting “but i saw it on youtube - how can you say it’s not true?” it is seriously disturbing how stupid ‘murkins have gotten.
Yep, it went viral. Well done, Obama supporters. And well done, aboveground Obama campaign, for successfully maintaining plausible deniability in the face of a relentless campaign by the press to get to the bottom of the matter. Oh, wait…
NOTE I’m actually thinking that a “working toward Obama” attitude might be at the root of it all. We are dealing with a movement, here, after all, even if the movement is, at this point, about nothing other than jobs for the Boiz.
Correction:
Atrios says: “I was going to ignore it until Drudge posted it, but stupid me anyway.”
lambert: what is the point of your msg? that this somehow sticks to OB? rational heads realize a lot of hrc hatred is pocketed throughout the country…could this be (if in fact a dirty trick) possibly someone just trying to mess with the hrc campaign as opposed to overtly assist OB. Again, at this point IN voters have decided and the work is in the GOTV efforts…not a last minute ugly video to sway voters…Same issue with WVWV - it really isn’t going to impact any large blocs of votes - just another issue that may stick and give some groups who are easily sided with conspiracy something to rant about…
How about spend your time validating why hrc feels OB is unelectable because he can’t win low income white voters east of the Mississippi (appalachia) but she is somehow electable while losing the AA, educated white, mid-high income white, and indies voters (except in Ark, Mass, Ok and RI)??? She lost those blocs in all other states…(iirc)
Joe–it may be we don’t disagree, but it bears repeating that just because you lose a demographic in a primary does not mean you lose it in the general. If HRC lost among “AA, educated white, mid-high income white, and indies voters” in NY or California in the primary, that does not mean that she loses them in the general–or that she loses either state either.
The same is true for Barack Obama (and you have his initials backward), although I worry that the Bradley effect may hurt him when we get to the general–assuming that he gets the nomination.
Henry - do you actually expect, upon an HRC nomination ((see: theft)), hrc to not lose AA voters almost entirely in the GE? Her positives among AA voters currently hovers around 17% and if she gets the nom most AA’s will correctly see it as thievery. Her potential pull among AA would then foreseeably drop to single digits…most will likely sit out…imo. You are correct abt not losing a demographic in a GE just because you lose a primary…BINGO — that’s what makes hrc’s argument of OB as unelectable to be completely bogus and baseless…
Henry…it doesn’t do any good to match wits with Joe because he immediately descends to points you don’t want to go. But since I have links…
Joe - don’t look now…
that’s the sound of your guy tanking…11 point drop in less than a week.
that’s typical of what is happening to Obama everywhere…
I thought the Dems actually wanted to win the presidential election this year
oh an by the way…anyone who actually wants to find the Obama surrogates behind the ratfucking viral video…see details at MyDD
naz - you succeed in showing anyone can find polls to support practically any slant…how about you explaing how OB is unelectable?
My citation of a poll showing hrc positives was stated incorrectly. (did I mis-state or mis-speak?) here is the actual link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/opinion/03blow.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
you like to flame out on commenting about my posts but curiously really never counter my pov…you are a fan of hrc and I am one for OB. it’s politics - I don’t have a dog in the fight - while you act as if you have money riding on this…I am merely a supporter of rules, votes, and the election process. If hrc was ahead and OB was throwing the sink I would support the rules like I am doing now. How do you think you would react if the shoe was on the other foot? you know…what would you be doing if OB was acting like hrc if he had no mathmatical chance of winning the delegates…? you may think you would support the rules of election and say he has every right to stay in the race…but I think we all know you and mr hrc would be purple faced, finger-waggin and untying panty knots all the live-long day…
“it’s politics - I don’t have a dog in the fight - while you act as if you have money riding on this…I am merely a supporter of rules, votes, and the election process.”
Okay, using the rules of projection, somebody does have a dog in this fight, somebody’s getting paid to dismiss the votes of MI and FL, to show approval for bending the rules (100% of those votes disallowed, for the first time? really?), and to protect the money that might be behind this BHO process.
And, folks, it ain’t me.
“”somebody’s getting paid to dismiss the votes of MI and FL, to show approval for bending the rules (100% of those votes disallowed, for the first time? really?)”"
Rules?? You mean hrc and co are now standing behind and supporting rules!?? LMAO!
now she claims “elitist opinion” is wrong…I’ll try to keep that in mind next time she is on a policy-wonk diatribe citing leading research and economists…even Krugman says she’s wrong on the gas tax holiday…pure pandering/pure clinton