PITTSBURGH (AP) – A McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter “B” scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack, police said Friday. Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false and was being charged with making a false report to police, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department’s investigations division. Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.
Todd, who is white, told police she was attacked by a 6-foot-4 black man Wednesday night.
Do we really want a president and vice-president who would try to exploit such a tragic story?
And now that it has turned out to be false, both McCain and Palin have some explaining to do.
Why, for example, did they not wait for the police report before calling the young woman and expressing their “sympathy”? The story obviously seemed fishy from the start, but both candidates ran with it, following Drudge and FOX “News.”
And even if the story had proved true, what did they think was the relevance of the incident to their campaign against the Democrats—except as racial symbolism?
Obviously, this was yet another attempt to gin up racial fear, and even hysteria, among whites concerning the implications of an Obama presidency.
Prometheus Unbound 