Hillary Clinton Denies Making 1974 Jewish Slur

Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton Sunday angrily denied having uttered an anti-Jewish slur 26 years ago, calling the allegation “politics of the worst kind.”

Clinton, who is running for the Senate representing New York against Republican Rep. Rick Lazio, was reported in a new book to have blamed Bill Clinton’s 1974 congressional race loss on his campaign manager Paul Fray, supposedly calling him a “Jew bastard.”

“It did not happen,” Clinton told reporters at a news conference outside her home in suburban Chappaqua. “I’ve never said anything like that in my entire life.”

Saying “I am very angry,” Clinton called the report “politics of destruction,” but she did not say who she thought might be behind it.

The alleged quote, contained in the upcoming “State of the Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton” by former National Enquirer reporter Jerry Oppenheimer, was confirmed by former Clinton campaign worker Neill McDonald, according to the New York Daily News. It was first reported Friday by Internet gossip writer Matt Drudge.

McDonald told the newspaper that the remark, which he said he heard, was made “in the heat of battle” and was not a reflection of anti-Semitism by Clinton.

Clinton’s spokesman blasted the story as “a pathetic lie.” “It was clearly designed to divide the Jewish community,” Howard Wolfson said.

Lazio has not commented on the reports, but state Assembly leader John Faso said Clinton owes New Yorkers an explanation.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, issued a statement saying “I’ve known Hillary Clinton for eight years, and she doesn’t have an anti-Semitic bone in her body.”

Jewish voters, the majority of whom traditionally support Democrats, make up a significant voting group in New York. Clinton leads Lazio among Jewish voters in polls, but they run about even overall.