At this point, I think the Kool-Aid is laced with meth.

"I've never used that word in my entire life, ever, under any circumstance, ever," an angry Kantor told The Huffington Post, citing his and his parent's work fighting for civil rights. "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."

Indeed, a review of the original copy of the 1993 film The War Room, from which the excerpt was taken (around the 4:40 mark) is virtually inaudible. The sound suggests, if anything, that instead of saying "How would you like to be a worthless white n****r?" Kantor says, "How would you like to be in the White House right now?"

Let's see where we are, shall we?  In the last few days, they've called a voter registration effort by a well-known bipartisan group voter suppression, circulated a petition trying to split the party along racial lines, and are now pushing a doctored video clip.  

Further, based on a year's worth of conversations with uncommitted superdelegates, I've found that a good number of them just do not want another Clinton administration -- this is a psychic block for many of them. They are already predisposed to favor Obama. And they like him. And they have doubts about his general election viability. In their thinking, if he's going to be the nominee, he's going to need their support regardless of whether he earned their support.

[Here's] A splendid example of parsing from the unnamed [why?] smear artist [who created the video.] D.A. Pennebaker is the director of the "The War Room," from which the Kantor video was lifted; Ben Smith quotes him:

The second expletive, he said, appeared to have been entirely fabricated, with new audio dubbed onto the original movie.

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.

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.

1. We're really posing the old philosophical question of the identity of indiscernibles, aren't we? Can the viewer tell the difference between "new audio dubbed" and "enhanced, but didn't alter"? I'm guessing No. Perhaps we could settle on "digitally manipulated"?

2. Obviously, the video was meant to hurt Clinton in IN; that's why the subtitle slurring IN was added. Oddly, or not, Smith doesn't cover who added the subtitle and why in his UPDATE.

3. Why are there two versions of the video? Did the client request changes from "the editor of the video"?

4. Why won't Smith name the editor? Is the editor from the Obama campaign? Affiliated with the Obama campaign? A member of the OFB? What other material has this editor dubbed enhanced?

5. Who posted the video?

6. Who blog-whored the video?

Yes, we have the freedom to say anything we want, but along with that freedom comes a responsibility to perform due dilligence, research and source material.  Not everything we think is right, not everything we think should be posted and not everything we think is grist for the mill and deserving of dissection and parsing for meaning.

Once it is published, it cannot be taken back, no matter how often we attempt to debunk it, or prove it wrong, or try to correct misperceptions bad information causes.  As democrats we have to think beyond the next primary or the convention and remind ourselves that getting a democrat in the White House is far more important to this nation than the immediate gratification of hurting the other candidate now.  

For members of the service and their families this election truly is a matter of life and death, for those workers in this country who have been materially harmed by the new workers' regulations put in place by this current administration this election is of paramount importance, for those people without health care and access to it, this election can mean the difference between real suffering, physically and emotionally and for those who want a better future for their children, this election is the most important of their lives.  

Since the election of 2000 and the candidacy of Al Gore, we have allowed ourselves to be our own worst enemy, not only tolerating inaccurate and smear tactics of the press, but joining in on them and helping to spread and disseminate the worst kinds of calumnies and rumours about our candidates.  Sadly, it's not getting better, it's getting worse, with reporters who have in the past been somewhat reliable, such as Josh Marshall, ( a site which has developed a prediliction for running with a story first and a check later and foregoing responsibility and the simple courtesy of apology) Kos, Atrios and Tapped now actively adding to the problem with ill sourced reports, inaccurate articles, a complete lack of integrity in some cases and the will and ethics to correct the record, apologize and move the discourse to a higher level.  

Taking anything from Drudge and believing it is a scandal in itself.

This kind of smear campaigning will not help Obama one bit.  His fatigue is showing and his mask is still slipping.

They are still obsessed with the Women's Voices Women Vote "scandal". They truly believe that this organization has been set up for years, gaining the respect of GOTV coalitions everywhere, with the sole purpose of giving it legitimacy so that it could use that trust as cover for it's black voter supression efforts to help Clinton. The evidence: Some people associated with the group also have ties to the Clintons. The fact that many of these ties go back to Bill Clinton's campaign is irrelevant. The fact that other's associated with the group are Obama supporters is irrelevant. The fact that the company made robocalls to all kinds of people in dozens of states on the days in question is just proof that they will go to any length to provide cover for their nefarious dealings.

But, I think this video is problematic for HRC folks because it emphasizes the bias of Stephanopoulos on the (near) eve of his no-charge HRC promotional town hall, which occurs right before an election (recall that last time HRC paid for this privilege on the Hallmark Channel.)

Via FARK,

Awesome misheard lyrics (Meshuggah's Future Breed Machine)

And the classic The Indian Song, "My bun is fine Benny Lava"  (Note, if you don't see the lyrics on the screen, the song is an Indian song, however, if your boss is actually reading the forced english translation over your shoulder, the lyrics are not safe for work.  Given that it's all actually Hindi (I think), the song itself probably is SFW.)

How does any campaign fight things like this?

"Anonymous Obama supporter doctors video to smear Clinton"

And of course, all I can hear is the little crickets.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/5/2/13036/55377