The blogosphere and talk radio erupted Friday over a clip lifted from “The War Room,” the 1993 documentary about Bill Clinton’s victorious presidential run. An anonymous poster placed a 37-second snippet on the Web, pumping up the audio and adding subtitles purporting to echo the words on the soundtrack. In the clip, Mickey Kantor, a longstanding close adviser to both Clintons, is shown saying “those people are [excrement].” The anonymous poster added subtitles that strongly suggest Kantor was referring to Indianans (who just happen to have a Democratic primary coming up Tuesday); Kantor said he was referring to pollsters.

More incendiary was his statement a few seconds later, supposedly describing white Indiana voters with the N-word. Kantor went ballistic, telling the Huffington Post, “I’ve never used that word in my entire life, ever, under any circumstance, ever. 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.” He went on to threaten to slap a libel suit on whoever posted the clip — if that person can ever be found.

Adding to the murkiness was the fact that “The War Room’s” director D.A. Pennebaker promptly told The Washington Post that the clip had been doctored.

Judge for yourself. Here’s a longer excerpt from the film, minus the subtitles and audio enhancements added to the brief clip. Kantor’s quotes begin around the 4:50 mark and are almost totally inaudible.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Democrats, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Presidential. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.