The day after her story of a politically-motivated assault made headlines around the nation, coverage pushed relentlessly by McCain-Palin campaign officials, a McCain campaign worker admitted she made it all up. Ashley Todd, 20, told Pittsburgh police on Wednesday night that she had been held up at an ATM, and the mugger, a 6' 4" black male, had become enraged once he saw a McCain bumper sticker on her car. Todd claimed her assailant had then pinned her to the ground and used a dull knife blade to carve a "B" into her cheek, after telling her, "you are going to be a Barack supporter."
The most appalling part of this episode was the McCain team's reaction. Desperate for a turn of events that would paint their opponents in a negative light, they rushed to disseminate the story to media outlets before all the facts were known. McCain's Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman actually peddled a version to reporters that was far more incendiary than details confirmed by police at the time. Feldman claimed the attacker told Todd, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson," and that the carved "B" definitely stood for "Barack."
But it was all a hoax. Friday morning, police stated that "we have learned that the victim's statement has a few inconsistencies in it and her statement has changed." A few hours later, police said Todd had confessed that there was no robbery or attacker, and would be charged with filing a false police report. She also told police she had prior mental health problems.
According to one of the actual police reports documenting the charade's unraveling, Todd says she can't remember whether she mutilated her own face, or had someone else do it. And Todd now claims she can't explain why she invented the story, but her motivation behind staging the incident seems clear from details in the police report - to smear Obama supporters.
Todd said she was driving around in her car, looked in her rear-view mirror, saw a "B," and the first thing she thought of was Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, according to a police report obtained by WTAE Channel 4 Action News.
Todd, from College Station, Texas, had been campaigning in Pennsylvania for the past few weeks. She was volunteering through the College Republican National Committee to recruit other college students to volunteer for McCain-Palin. CRNC executive director Ethan Eilon told FOX News that Todd had taken a year off from Blinn College in Texas to work on the campaign. She is also apparently a former Ron Paul volunteer.
Todd with Ron Paul at campaign appearance in February, 2008
Police doubted her story from the beginning, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division:
"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."
Bryant confirmed that police were also suspicious as to why the "B" on Todd's cheek was backward.
This tale faced a skeptical public from the moment it hit. Even rabidly far right blogger Michelle Malkin pointed out numerous holes in Todd's hard-to-believe account of being the victim of a political hate crime.
The entire mess is a tragic development, and I hope this young woman gets the mental health treatment she needs.
Yet a double standard is obvious based on the amount of coverage this incident received prior to any suggestion that it might be a hoax. The story was pushed hard by the Drudge Report, and most conservative talking heads ran with it. Sean Hannity devoted most of his Thursday afternoon talk radio broadcast to the topic, broadcasting live from Pittsburgh. Local news stations around the country featured the story on Thursday night's evening and late night newscasts.
Compare this with how little attention has been paid to a recent wave of politically-motivated, violent acts perpetrated by McCain-Palin supporters, several of which occurred in North Carolina and were covered on HuffPo earlier this week.
The crucial difference is that Obama and Biden are not traveling the country stirring up hatred among their supporters that would incite violence, while McCain and Palin clearly are. But let loose the spectre of a scary, hulking black criminal knifing up a poor, defenseless white girl, and predictably, the media lights swarmed.
Thankfully, McCain and Palin's disgraceful attacks on Obama have backfired, contributing to their meltdown in the polls. And the McCain camp's shameful eagerness to exploit hurtful situations like this hoax for political gain helps explain the revulsion that decent citizens have developed for the GOP ticket's increasingly desperate, unbalanced campaign.
Erik Ose is a veteran of Democratic campaigns in North Carolina and blogs at The Latest Outrage.
anything.
Charles Solomon
Miss Todd to do such a despicable thing, but she got caught and the McCain bunch who exploited
such an "opportunity" to bash Obama by embellishing on an unproven accusation really spelled
out their own political demise.
Sincerely
Charles Solomon
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"Irony," Michale?... Surely you jest. To say that the right wing is not rife with bigots is to live in a world of 'selective' denial.
}}}}}
Allow me to tweak your statement to illustrate my point...
"To say that black people not rife with criminals is to live in a world of 'selective' denial."
or
"To say that the Jewish people are not rife with money-hungry tightwads is to live in a world of 'selective' denial."
Now, please explain to me exactly how those two statements are NOT bigotry...
And, since it's a fact that those two statements ARE bigoted statements and the statement you made is identical in syntax, the ONLY logical conclusion that any rational person could come up with is that your statement was also bigoted..
Michale.....
If she think we are going to forget that in 2012, she is sadly mistaken.
They should have taken some of that shopping money and got tutors to educate her in a basic civic lesson.
I bet she cannot tell you what the bill of rights are. When she is ask a question she will gloss over it and change the subject. The media cannot get to her and when they do, it is with pre-conditions.
McCain has to be there, they need to know the questions, and they have to accept the fact that she may answer them or may not.
Once the deeper digging begins, don't be surprised to learn that this was a last-minute anti-Obama tactic that was conceived and paid for by the Hate Talk Express.
Somebody give this poor sick girl some serious treatment in a good mental health facility. And if you have an ounce of forgiveness in you, remember the atmosphere she was working in within the ha teful McCain/Palin campaign.
We need a grown-up running the White House, not a sixth grade bully with a huge chip on his shoulder.
Thanks for good informative article.
The McCain campaign is the Glorification of Ignorance, Imbecility and Bastardy.
McCain is clearly the "Friend of Pinochet", who can be more terrorist, torturer and antiDemocracy that PInochet ??? ... See the photos of McCain with Pinochet and you discover "Who is John McCain"... and his associations and friends.
Ayers is a fool and beginner compared to Pinochet, in terrorism, torture and murder.
So we come to HYPOCRISY, practiced by McCain.
His campaign is based on slanders, lies, calumnies and innuendos.
There is a lot of Covert Racism in accusing a TALL BLACK MAN, like in the Susan Smith case that killed her two sons and accused an imaginary Black Man.
Remember the movies "To kill a mockingbird" and "Green Fried Tomatoes", always accusing a Black Man without proofs.
I want to use my RACIALITY.COM site to tell beautiful stories of Racials and Multiracials, Blacks, Latinos, etc ... Beautiful Moving Stories and not this filth and dirt of McCain.
Racism is sickening, thinking of racism all day poisons the soul. It is better to think of tender stories of hope, glee and bliss, exultant high-spirited joy, the happiness of Black People that are going to see the first "black" president.
Correction : half white, half black.
http://raciality.raciality.com/
http://milenials.blogspot.com/
Vicente Duque
The Mad Hatter unreality of the McCain campaign's tailspin into oblivion is only cheering from the perspective that it gives national Democratic candidates an increasingly profound opportunity to mount an historic sweep of US House and Senate races. And don't count out the potentially explosive down-ballot advantages as well.
Still, the Rovian vote-suppression and vote-tampering machine is in full swing, so we ought take nothing for granted. Onward.