As most people have heard by now, 20-year-old Ashley Todd from Texas was
doing volunteer work for the McCain/Palin campaign in Pittsburgh and alleged
that she was robbed Wednesday night by a large black man. When the assailant saw a McCain sticker
on her car, she says she was attacked by the man and the letter “B” was marked
on her face with a knife.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/24/mccain.sticker/?iref=hpmostpop
For an example of TV News coverage of this story, see the following: http://kdka.com/video?id=47866@kdka.dayport.com
John Moody,
Executive Vice President of Fox News called it “a moment of truth”: “If Ms.
Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support
for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep.
John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the
Democratic nominee. If the
incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is
over, forever linked to race-baiting.”
See: http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/23/jmoody_1023/
Now
Ms. Todd has confessed to making it all up:
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=205053
Let us be clear that there is no reason to believe this was orchestrated
by the McCain/Palin national campaign.
At the same time, the incident illustrates the
point of the critique of the campaign provided here. Ashley Todd was telling the same sort of tale told in the
south to justify discrimination against African Americans, from Jim Crow laws
to lynching: Alleged black crimes against innocent white women. The headline on the Drudge Report
screamed “MCCAIN VOLUNTEER 'ATTACKED AND MUTILATED' IN PITTSBURGH.” Other websites picked up the thread
with titles such as “OBAMA SUPPORTER ATTACKS MCCAIN VOLUNTEER AND
MUTILATES HER FACE!” YouTube was the site of
instant reactions such as “Obama supporter
brutalizes & mutilates McCain volunteer!”
There is a report that the Pennsylvania communications director for the McCain campaign “told [local] reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established.” This is getting an increasing amount of coverage, but so far the McCain campaign has not repudiated this clear case of "incendiary mendacity."
See the Report Here
And Brian Williams Report Here
