True Republican thought

Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter "B" in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker [...]

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and "the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction."

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

It had drawn wide local and national -- even political attention, with the McCain and Obama campaigns weighing in -- but now the Ashley Todd story has falled apart. Police in Pittsburgh have now declared the tale a hoax and the woman now faces charges for her deed.

Earlier today, John Moody, executive vice president at Fox News, commented on his blog there that "this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election. 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."

He titled his posting: "Moment of Truth." Indeed.

Woman With 'B' Scratched In Face Faked Political Attack

Bloomfield ATM Robbery At Knifepoint Was Made Up, Police Say

POSTED: 4:03 pm EDT October 23, 2008
UPDATED: 6:13 pm EDT October 24, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh police said a 20-year-old woman who originally said she was robbed and assaulted at knifepoint in Bloomfield because of her political views made the story up.

Ashley Todd -- who has a backward letter "B" scratched into her right cheek -- confessed to faking the story and will be charged with filing a false report, Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant said at a news conference Friday.
Todd, of College Station, Texas, admitted there was no robbery or attacker and said she had prior mental health problems, according to Bryant.

McCain Communications Director Gave Reporters Incendiary Version Of "Carved B" Story Before Facts Were Known

By Greg Sargent - October 24, 2008, 5:12PM

John McCain's Pennsylvania communications director told 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 -- and even told reporters outright that the "B" carved into the victim's cheek stood for "Barack," according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.
John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.

The KDKA reporter had called McCain's campaign office for details after seeing the story -- sans details -- teased on Drudge.

The McCain spokesperson's claims -- which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world -- is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.

The claims to KDKA from the McCain campaign were included in an early story that ran late yesterday on KDKA's Web site. The paragraphs containing these assertions were quickly removed from the story after the Obama campaign privately complained that KDKA was letting the McCain campaign spin a racially-charged version of the story before the facts had been established, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

The story with the removed grafs is still right here. We preserved the three missing grafs from yesterday:





A source familiar with what happened yesterday confirmed that the unnamed spokesperson was communications director Peter Feldman. Feldman was also quoted yesterday making virtually identical assertions on the Web site of another local TV station, WPXI. But those quotes, which we also preserved here, are also no longer available on WPXI's site, for reasons that are unclear.

This is problematic because the McCain campaign doesn't want to have been perceived as pushing an incendiary story that not only turned out to be a hoax but which police officials said today risked blowing up into a "national incident" and has local police preparing to file charges against the hoaxster.

There's no evidence that anyone from McCain national headquarters put out a version of events like this.

After the story appeared on KDKA's site and this and other pieces in the local press started flying around the political world, an Obama spokesperson in the state angrily insisted to KDKA that it was irresponsible for the station to air the McCain spokesperson's incendiary version of events before the facts were fully known, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

After that, KDKA went back to McCain's Pennsylvania spokesperson, Feldman, and asked if he stood by the story as he'd earlier told it, but he started backing off the story, a source familiar with the talks says. That prompted KDKA to remove the grafs.

Feldman couldn't immediately be reached, and a McCain HQ spokesperson declined to comment.

FOX News Blogs » FOX Forum » John Moody

October 23, 2008 9:32 PM
Moment of Truth
It had to happen.

Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it.

Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old white volunteer for John McCain’s presidential campaign, says she was mugged at an ATM machine in Pittsburgh (my hometown) by a big black man. She further says he threw her down, then disfigured her by carving the letter “B” into her face with a sharp implement when he saw that she supported McCain, not Barack Obama.

Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

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.

For Pittsburgh, a city that has done so much to shape American history over the centuries, another moment of truth is at hand.

In that video, at 1:08 you hear a kid say "The worlds comin to an end for you people."

That's Family Values?

Butterflynet, I thought I would post the missing image of the talking point memo from the McCain camp to reporters from the article you posted.



http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/mccain_aide_gave_reporters_inc.php

jeez-louise! those boneheads can't even perpetrate a decent scam like this one, and i'm supposed to believe they can run the country??

i don't think i've ever seen a more disfunctional, self-screwing bunch of elitist hacks.

they really seem to have an aversion to doing their homework. or are they just a bunch of liars?

either way, mccain and palin have absolutely no business running this country.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/videos/2008/oct/22/983/

Hate, Rage and Racism follow a Palin rally on October 22nd.

Video won't embed, but it's shocking ****

Cycloptichorn

I would be ashamed to have bigots on the same side as me, personally...

Republican asshole harasses lady filming the fact that they have paid volunteers in FL...


how much you wanna bet that he runs around yelling about how the u.s. is spreading democracy in iraq? seems doubtful to me that he believes in it, though.

pretty funny that he thinks he can call the cops because someone is talking to people on the street.


At least the guy in the red shirt seems pretty nice... but he'd better not beam down to the planet with the away team.

no kidding.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I would be ashamed to have bigots on the same side as me, personally...

You have far more of them on your side than the numbers found on the right.

True Republican Thought
Racism, xenophobia and hate.

Pre-emptive ejection: Audience members removed at McCain rally in Cedar Falls


By Dylan Boyle " Daily Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 2:57 PM CDT
Audience members escorted out of Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., campaign event in Cedar Falls questioned why they were asked to leave Sunday’s rally even though they were not protesting.

David Zarifis, director of public safety for the University of Northern Iowa, said McCain staffers requested UNI police assist in escorting out “about four or five” people from the rally prior to McCain’s speech.

Zarifis said while the people who were taken out weren’t protesting or causing problems, McCain’s staff were worried they would during the speech.

“Apparently, they had been identified by those staffers as potential protesters within the event,” Zarifis said. “The facility was rented by the RNC for the McCain campaign, so it’s really a private facility for them. We assisted in their desires to have those people removed.”

Lara Elborno, a student at the University of Iowa, said she was approached by a police officer and a McCain staffer and was told she had to leave or she would be arrested for trespassing.

“It was a very confusing, very frustrating situation,” Elborno said. “I said that I had a right to be there, I wasn’t doing anything disruptive " I was sitting, waiting for the rally to start.”

She said McCain staffers wouldn’t tell her why she was being asked to leave and when she got outside, she saw “a group of about 20 people” who had all been asked to leave.

Elborno said after seeing the people who were asked to leave, she was concerned that McCain’s staffers were profiling people on appearance to determine who might be a potential protester.

“When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.”

Elborno said even McCain supporters were among those being asked to leave.

“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”

Elborno said while she has protested at events before, no plans were discussed beforehand for a protest and she shouldn’t have been taken out because she was not causing a disturbance.

“If I had been disruptive, then I would have deserved to be taken out,” Elborno said. “But at the time I was asked to leave, I wasn’t doing anything.”

Elborno said she’s stunned at how the situation was handled, especially McCain’s staffers’ refusal to discuss the matter.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.

Despite repeated attempts, McCain’s campaign could not be reached for comment.

I guess only white males over the age of 40 are permitted at McCain events now. I wonder if they have to have shaved heads too.