News today of a robbery in Pittsburgh where a a person described as a “6′ 4″ dark-skinned African-American male” allegedly robbed a young, white woman at an ATM and carved a “B” on her face when he found out she supported McCain.
This horrific individual act is now being played up by the Drudge Report and the right wing media as somehow emblematic of the supporters of Barack Obama. The only thing it will do is incite racial division and open up the flood gates for those who harbor racist sentiments to let it all out.
This is beyond dangerous. This is all that the Republicans have left: one isolated incident of black-on-white crime as a reason white people should somehow fear a black president.
The awful man who did this should be punished by the full extent of the law, and I hope the poor woman makes a recovery. But if the right wing media plays this up as somehow a reason not to vote for Obama, they are making a grave and dangerous error.
Using this for political gain would make the Willie Horton ads of 1988 seem downright fair and would demonstrate just how low the Republican party is willing to go to win this election.
That said, if indeed this happened the way the young woman described (presumably we will be getting videotape from the bank as it is heavily secured), this man should be put in prison for a very long time. This is beyond disgusting.
UPDATE: The Politico and a host of right-wing blogs have picked this up. Ezra Klein has a good take on it. Apparently, the victim is named Ashley Todd, and she has a Twitter feed that is somewhat interesting: before she was attacked, she Tweeted that she was looking for a Bank of America ATM to “avoid ATM fees” and then Tweeted that she was “Pretty sure I’m on the wrong side of Pittsburgh.” Right now, there’s no reason not to believe her but this does seem a strangely clairvoyant to Tweet about going to an ATM on the wrong side of town and then getting attacked. Well, it’s a shame what has happened to her and it’s good to hear she’s phonebanking for McCain at the moment, it must mean she’s going to be okay.
UPDATE 2: Here is Todd’s Flickr photostream (UPDATE: this may just be lifeinthefield.com’s photostream, it’s hard to tell if Todd took any of the photos). She is certainly a very hardcore McCain supporter. She’s been to tons of rallies and even dressed up like Obama as a baby being carried by Hillary Clinton. (UPDATE: This appears to be someone else, I got this off the same page as her Twitter stream and assumed it was her’s. Apologize for the error.)
UPDATE 3: Michelle Malkin doesn’t think it’s real, and points out that the reversed “B” suggests it was done in the mirror. A cop Malkin knows doesn’t think it’s real either. I have to admit, Malkin, as nutty as she can be, has done a hell of a job with this post.
UPDATE 4: Almost nobody seems to believe this is real at this point. Here is Ashley Todd’s MySpace page, with the line, “Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her cloths off, but its better if you do.” Oh boy…
Increasingly, the real story here is the original take I had on it: Matt Drudge is willing us put out any kind of salacious story, regardless of the facts, in order to blow up this campaign. FoxNews has a small blurb up about it, and I don’t know of Klannity picked it up or not.
I don’t believe the point of this story is whether or not it’s true. I shudder to think of what is going to happen to this young girl if she faked it. She will be ridiculed for life.
The real story here was how quick Matt Drudge was to take an unsubstantiated story with deep, DEEP racial implications and go red-font front-page with it, using words like “mutilated.” This follows a pattern Drudge has been following in recent weeks, putting a picture of Obama kissing a white woman and letting a group display an ad showing Obama with Mohamed Atta.
I wonder if what the mainstream media types that still put Drudge as their homepage are finally going to start having second thoughts? Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza still rates him highly. Is it over yet?
Even Drudge himself had a schizophrenic relationship with this story, starting out as a front page red-font story, then moving to the upper left with a story about Bloomberg, then back to the front with the photo of Todd, and then back to the upper left with a story about how al Qaeda isn’t planning an October surprise.
As of now, 7:04PM Pacific, the story is still up with a photo of Todd in the upper left. He wants to put it front-and-center, but knows now it’s probably bogus, but doesn’t want to look ridiculous by taking it down altogether.
He already looks dumb. On the same page, he trumpets the “most accurate pollster from 2004″ with a poll showing the race close, even though the poll has 18-24 year olds voting for John McCain by a 74% to 22% margin. Admittedly, if everybody in this demographic votes like that, McCain will probably only be barely losing.
Drudge even took the time to display a Nickelodeon online kids poll where McCain was barely losing last week. Is he drinking? Has he become a caricature of himself?
He has certainly jumped the shark. No doubt about that.
UPDATE 5: 11PM Pacific, Pittsburgh Tribune reports,
Police planned to administer a polygraph test to Ashley Todd, 20, because her statements about the attack conflict with evidence from the Citizens Bank ATM where she claims the incident occurred, police said.
Already with the polygraph? A lot of conservatives are going to be looking silly. But I still feel bad for the girl. This is what happens when supporters get stoked into a paranoid frenzy. I’m sure, if indeed she faked this, it was because she really believes Obama is dangerous.
UPDATE 6: 1:30AM, Pacific. Still up on Drudge. Here’s what he’s got in the upper left:
Hasn’t changed in hours. Malkin, oddly, is a sea of sanity on her own site, which has many commenters suggesting that Todd is a closet Obama supporter who inflicted this injury on herself to make Obama look bad and then make McCain look bad because she faked it. Get out your white tennis shoes and your tin foil, folks: the wingnuts are in top form.
UPDATE 7: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with a full report, and headline “McCain volunteer robbed, assaulted.”
Ms. Todd told police during at least five hours of questioning last night that her attacker said to her, “You are going to be a Barack supporter.” She told police the man then sat on her chest, pinning both her hands down with his knees and used what she believed was a dull knife with a roughly 5-inch blade to carve the B. [emphasis added]
If he sat on her chest, why would he carve the backward B? I though maybe he somehow got her from above her head, but this just makes the “carved it in the mirror” scenario all the more plausible.
UPDATE 8: It’s officially a hoax. Drudge cops to it with front page “She Made It Up.” Let’s see how long that lasts up there.
But let’s remember, still: this is a 20-year-old girl who, if it’s true or not, is not going to be in a very good place for awhile. Hopefully, Obama supporters won’t go crazy on her if it turns out she staged it. Best to blame the messengers who put the nutty, paranoid thoughts in her head.