By now, you've probably heard about Ashley Todd. She's the young McCain campaign volunteer who claimed to have been attacked by a large black man while she was at a Pittsburgh ATM. She told police that the letter "B" scratched on her right cheek was put there by her assailant after he saw the McCain bumper sticker on her car.

"I'll make you an Obama supporter," the mugger said.

The whole thing started falling apart when the police noted that the "B" was backwards, as if Todd had done it to herself. Guess what? She did. Under questioning, she admitted that there was no black mugger. Her motives for filing the false police report are still unclear.

One thing is certain, though: John McCain was having a bad enough week without her "help."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_594853.html

[Sorry for the non-automatic links but Expression Engine, the site used to post things here, keeps mucking them up. I suspect you all know how to copy and paste.]

Another version with more detail about Todd and her story:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9411R800&show_article=1

And the plot thickens even more. Turns out the whole "I'll make you an Obama supporter" detail came not from Ashley Todd, but from McCain's Pennsylvania Communications Director:

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

It's getting UGLY out there!

Now that's dedication to your candidate!

I am SHOCKED that she claimed the imaginary mugger was black.

I'll bet she has no idea she's a racist. She probably says, "Some of my best friends are muggers."

That woman is just a copycat. She must have heard about a similar story that happened in France 4 years ago. A young woman said she had been assaulted by several young men of North African origin, who had mistaken her for a Jew and drawn a swastika on her belly with a felt pen. It turned out that there were no young men and that she had done the drawing herself, because she wanted some attention. And she got some: all the newspapers, radios and TV channels started an outcry and called the young Arabs from the suburbs antisemitic barbarians. They didn't feel necessary to check the facts. And when they learned it never happened, the medias didn't apologize. They said that, if it had been real, it would have been shocking, so they had been right anyway.

not to say that I knew from the start or anything, but I had the tv on as i was on the computer and the NY news mixed it in with the rest, as if it were an ordinary occurance. My ears popped up and I thought,"what the F***?" yeh right? It sounded so absurd, I thought I heard incorrectly. When I saw the backwards "B" , I also had an immeadiate reaction in the same way.
I wouldn't call this a hoax, but a sad and bizarre action by a mentally unstable individual. It actually intrigues me more than if it were some crazy random act of violence or gang initiation act. It is unfortuanate that the police had to waste time while other important cases were temporarily delayed.
How did the political press, at large, state it?
It all happened so fast.

"... They said that, if it had been real, it would have been shocking, so they had been right anyway."

That's got to be the lamest excuse for publishing lies I've ever heard.

Sarah Palin butchered and cooked my dog, and John McCain ate it.

No, that isn't true, but if it were, it would be shocking, right? So it's OK for me to tell everybody this, right?