It must be hard to be a McCain supporter these days. Your candidate is losing badly to horror of horrors, an educated biracial Black man. Your so called $150,000 designer clothed 'hockey mom' VP candidate has been relentlessly lampooned on Saturday Night Live and is considered seriously unqualified by a majority of the American people, including members of your own party and the previous Secretary of State, Colin Powell.
To top it off your usual slimy race baiting attacks aren't working.
Well, in a shades of Susan Smith moment, a young McCain supporter, College Republican and volunteer named Ashley Todd from Aggieland (AKA College Station, TX) claims that around 9 PM EDT she was beat up and robbed at a Pittsburgh ATM by a large Black man and had a backwards 'B' carved into her face because she was a McPalin supporter.Predictably Faux News, Matt Drudge, the right wing blogosphere, and right wing talk radio jumped on this as 'evidence' of left wing 'hatred'. It neatly plays into the well worn conservative race baiting theme of white women being attacked by Black criminals. It even prompted statements from the McPalin and Obama campaigns.
Hold up, flag on the play. Like Susan Smith's over a decade ago, the story started falling apart. I was suspicious when it was noted she was from College Station. Texas A&M is home to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. Translation, she's conservative.
The College Republicans chiming in only cemented the impression for me that this story smelled worse than a sewage treatment plant.
Details of this story also didn't pass the smell test. The 'B' on her face was carved backwards and was too neat. If she was struggling against a larger, stronger attacker the 'B' carving to her face would have been more uneven. In addition, an angry attacker would have left far more bruises and serious injuries than what she is shown in her picture to have suffered.
Since she was attacked at an ATM, the surveillance tape video would have showed this attacker, right? Wrong. When the Citizens' Bank ATM security tape was checked at the time she claimed the alleged assault happened, no large Black man in the tape.
Her bank card info also shows no account activity at that time or the location where she claimed she was robbed.
Surprise, surprise.
The Pittsburgh police noted the inconsistencies as well, She amended her story to add a sexual assault and claiming she'd been hit and blacked out. They gave her a lie detector test which she failed.
She later confessed to faking the story and will be charged with filing a false report
But once again, the McPalin forces and the GOP will do anything to win. The only thing they have left is race baiting. It's getting dangerously close to inciting violence for real.
This is so sick an unsurprising. Not least because right wing media jumped on the story even though it was so obviously probably fake from the get-go. When is this picture supposed to be from? That B would have to have been "carved" quite awhile before the photo was taken to have healed so much. Bah.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Something tells me that the media won't shower nearly as much hate on this girl's fraudulent story as they did (and still occasionally do, even 20 years after the fact) on Tawana Brawley's. Gee, I wonder why.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, there's so much hate floating around right now - I think it's a sign of desperation. Public opinion is a bit more favorable towards Obama than McCain at the moment, and there is a very loud and angry (and white) faction of the Republican Party who are determined to cling to power like a rabid dog to a bone.
Toys in the attic.
ReplyDeleteWhere GOP Presidential nominees from Arizona are concerned, In your heart, if you know he's right, then in your guts, you know you're nuts.
Yep,
ReplyDeleteThe anger at how Bush squandered what the conservative movement has been working toward for 40 years, total control of the government, is manifesting itself in this election cycle.
This entire stroy appeared from the git to bea can of cat-food placed on a plate and called cavier.
ReplyDeleteI've spent a lot of my life in inner-city and just outside inner-city and in suburbs and rural areas. In all that time I have never experienced, heard about or read about a robber who took the time to make a political statement in the midst of committing a crime.
You had to just really be wanting this thing to be correct and have lost all sense to have even given it a sniff. OK, Faux, Drudge, Newsday, the Pitsburg paper? -- Alright. I suppose that list makes my case.
I think it's time for white Americans to rise as a body and for us to simply deny this kinda crap the second it begins. There's been more than enough time and effort made in similar cases to jump to conclusions about the ephermeral "blacj guy who did this."
It's past time for the dominant ethnic group to foreswear ourselves from what are obvious and deeply fearful reactions like the ones displayed over the past two days.
Hopefully we will put an end to the easy accusations of the likes of Asley Todd & Susan Smith & all of those other mean-spirited and absurd accusations.
Excellent post, Monica.
Star,
ReplyDeleteYou're so right on that one.
They are angry their conservative revolution has failed so miserably and is on the verge of being massively repudiated by the voters.
I'm not suprised that this was a hoax. And also not surprised that someone would pull something like this. I've been saying all along that the GOP really just wanted to have something near as bad all of the crap coming off their sinking ship. And given their record I'm not surprised that they would stoop to fabricating it to make it happen.
ReplyDeleteI was born in Bryan/CS and lived there until I was eight. I hope I didn't go to school with that woman.
Interesting how the black man is described as "large"...
ReplyDeleteAnyways, as a side note: Lie detector tests are useless; people can fake negatives, analysts don't have a truly objective way of interpreting the data