Another Dead Canary

Here’s the question of the day: How did the entire blogosphere and twitterverse know intuitively that Ashley Todd was some imbalanced attention-seeker almost immediately after the story broke but John McCain, Sarah Palin and their top staff did not?

Predictably, the liberal bloggers and tweeters were calling bullshit as soon as they heard Todd’s tale of getting mugged and having a backwards “B” carved scratched into her cheek while she was somewhere on the “wrong side” of Pittsburgh. The B, presumably, was for “Barack.” The mugger, a tallish, thinnish black man (apparently dyslexic) became enraged after he noticed that Todd, a McCain campaign worker, had a McCain bumper sticker on her car.

Of course, everyone knew it was a lie just by looking at the picture of her “disfigured” face posted at Smoking Gun. Why would the mugger carve a backwards B? And why did he take extra care not to break her skin with his knife after violently punching, kicking and throwing her to the ground?

I mean even conservative blogger Michelle Malkin called Todd out with a blog post that thought the story too odd to believe. However, many of Malkin’s conservative cohorts couldn’t resist fanning the flames of racial hysteria. Jay Bookman with the AJC has a roundup of the dimwits hollering about the “thuggery” of Obama’s campaign. They weren’t alone. Some mainstream media outlets were running with the story, despite the fact that the story couldn’t pass the smell test of any first-year journalism student.

Despite the doubts that were burning up the Internet, McCain and Palin both reportedly called Todd and her family to offer their support and sympathy. And lower down on the totem pole, McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman apparently did his best to make sure the story got mainstream media attention. TPM describes Feldman’s role in pushing the story:

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.

One presumes that the decision for the candidates to call Todd was made at the highest levels of the campaign, though at this point, that might be giving the dysfunctional McCain camp too much credit.

You almost can’t blame McCain or Palin for making the call. They have extreme demands on their time and they certainly don’t have time to be surfing the web and reading all the back and forth discussion that was taking place about this story. I’m assuming that they wouldn’t call Todd without first getting briefed by chief strategist Steve Schmidt or campaign manager Rick Davis, or at the very least, one of their top lieutenants. This is a situation where you trust that your staff has vetted Todd’s story and realizes the potential blowback if it turns out she’s a psychologically-troubled young lady with a history of making things up.

Once again, team McCain failed. Perhaps not an Epic Fail (Fox News Executive VP John Moody, in an otherwise ridiculous attempt to link Obama politically to the alleged incident, went so far to say if the incident was a hoax, it was game over for McCain) but an embarrassing moment, nonetheless, which adds just another unwanted distraction to an already chaotic campaign.

Here’s what some other bloggers are saying:

Kos @ The Daily Kos:

The story was instantly suspect, as the pictures of her supposed beating, her Twitter account, and her timelines all patently contradicted themselves. But the wingnutosphere, with the healthy assist from Fox News, piled on anyway, letting their ideological blinders get in the way of reality. As usual.

And now they look like idiots. As usual.

As for Ms. Ashley Todd, being a liar and race-baiter is par for the course for College Republicans.

Clinical psychologist Alan J. Lipman @ Head of State:

Anyone who understands the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder is well aware of what happened here. Extreme needs for attention combine with physically destructive behavior–most often seen in cutting one’s own skin–in an act meant to bring outer love and attention as it attacks inner self-hatred.

Shawn Williams @ Dallas South:

Introduce a black man to the story and you automatically get sympathy. That’s what happened to Ashley Todd as she was contacted by McCain, Palin, and apparently the Obama staff. This is the race baiting that McCain has chosen to align himself. Race voting and fear mongering are his only chances for the White House.

B-Serious @ Jack and Jill Politics:

Thankfully, her lies didn’t work. But if they had . . . if she never confessed to the hoax . . . Pennsylvania voters would surely have been inundated with questions and imagery that stir some of the deepest and darkest emotions this country has ever known regarding race. I doubt it would have been enough to flip the state. But it could have made things a lot closer.

I understand that she may have acted completely on her own. But I’m sure I’m not the only one with a few questions.