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.

How can you tell when a blogger is lacking inspiration? He posts a bunch of videos. I couldn’t resist putting this one up because it’s freaking hilarious. We’ve truly entered unchartered waters: The country is about to elect its first black president, the Tampa Bay Rays are in the World Series and Saturday Night Live is relevant again (via UltimateJosh).

Barack Obama was on The Ellen DeGeneres Show the other day, telling Ellen he might not be able to dance better than his wife, but he was pretty sure he could out dance John McCain. After watching this video, I’d call it a tie. Though I have to admit, I’m not sure Obama has an answer to that move where McCain bounces across the floor on his back (via RyanColesy).

Can it really be less than two months since the New York Times told the world how political strategist Steve Schmidt had transformed the McCain campaign into “an elbows-out, risk-taking, disciplined machine”? At the time, I remember having a visceral reaction to its description of Schmidt’s “brillilance.”

It bothered me that McCain’s surge in the polls was being credited to Schmidt’s attacking style and his penchant for hard-hitting, negative campaigning. What would you expect from a Karl Rove protege? Were Swift Boat politics going to be validated once again?

Now, with McCain’s campaign in a stuttering, discombobulated, mob-powered free fall, I wonder if Schmidt is still wearing the genius tag? If he gets credit for McCain pulling the race even over the summer, then does he get the blame for the looming electoral-college rout on the horizon?

I know that Zogby is reporting that McCain is closing the gap, pulling within 3 percentage points of Obama, but the only polls that count are the state-by-state polls. Five Thirty-Eight still projects Obama capturing 347 electoral votes, well more than the 270 needed to win on election day.

Schmidt’s top-shelf strategist cred has taken a little beating since the summer when all the political writers were singing his praises. The missteps are almost too many to keep track of. Does anyone still think that Sara Palin is going to  deliver more votes for McCain than she loses? The decision to quarantine Palin from reporters, while allowing her a few select national interviews was a dismal failure. McCain’s handling of the economic meltdown — with his announcement to suspend his campaign and take charge of the negotiations –  was so ill-thought out and so poorly executed one wonders why Schmidt and campaign manager Rick Davis still have jobs. The Palin-McCain debate prep left a lot to be desired (and that’s being kind). The campaign’s focus on “washed-up, old terrorist” Bill Ayers bombed, so to speak. The media backlash to “Joe the Plumber” might prove that gimmick just as ill-advised.

Basically, the McCain campaign has been anything but focused and disciplined of late.

Looking back on the NYT story, here’s the passage that stands out now:

Still, the new tone has been jarring to some veterans of Mr. McCain’s presidential run in 2000 who worry that the campaign exudes a cynicism that undercuts the senator’s old reputation for “straight talk” and a more elevated style of politicking. On a number of occasions, Mr. McCain’s campaign advertisements have been described by campaign watchdog organizations as false or misleading, particularly those attacking Mr. Obama on tax votes.

The fact that the race is still close after 8 years of George Bush and an economy going down in flames, tells us it’s too early to write McCain off or underestimate his ability to rally his base and sway the undecideds who are still uncomfortable with the idea of a mixed-race president. There’s also the specter of Ralph Nader and Bob Barr who don’t need to pull too many independents in one or two key swing states to really gum up the works.

The presidential campaign starts today. The next two weeks are all that matter. The American voters will have the final say on whether they’ve had their fill of dirty, hate-generating, deceptive campaign tactics and the “geniuses” who push them.

Now it gets exciting. Sources in John McCain’s camp spent the last several days telling reporters that the campaign was about to go hard negative against Barack Obama on the character issue. It was the best way, they said, to move the national discussion off of the economy.

And true to their word, VP candidate Sara Palin came out firing over the weekend, repeatedly bringing up Obama’s association with radical anti-war activst Bill Ayers, while talking about the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr with NYT columnist Bill Kristol, despite earlier pronouncements from McCain that Wright was “off limits.”

But a funny thing happened on the way to the mud pit. Obama’s camp let loose with its toughest offensive of the campaign — launching what they’re calling “Keating Economics,” an effort to remind voters of McCain’s ties to convicted S&L swindler Charles Keating.

The difference in the McCain attacks and the Obama counter is that while McCain is trying to paint Obama as guilty by association, McCain’s ties to Keating go much deeper than sharing a seat on a nonprofit board or being a member of a radical preacher’s congregation.

See Obama, despite Palin’s ludicrous assertions, has never been close friends to Ayers, who made a small donation to Obama’s campaign for the state Legislature and served on the board of directors of a Chicago charity with him for two years. And while Obama attended Wright’s church for many years, he has since repudiated Wright’s remarks on race, no matter that they have a ring of truth to them.

Meanwhile, McCain is going to have a little tougher time extricating himself from his close relationship with Keating, a McCain benefactor who called upon the Arizona senator to act as a buffer between federal banking regulators. These are the undeniable facts:

* Keating gave more than $1 million in contributions and gifts to the senators known as the “Keating Five,” which included McCain, Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston, John Glenn and Don Riegle.

* Keating gave McCain $112,000 in contributions, as well as what the WaPo describes as “lavish gifts.”

* Keating was business partners with Cindy McCain.

* McCain, on Keating’s behalf, tried to intervene with banking regulators investigating Keating.

* Keating was convicted of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

* McCain opposed federal regulation of the savings & loan industry, in effect allowing Keating and others to continue making risky, uninsured investments with their customers’ money.

* The Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded McCain for his role in the Keating influence-peddling scandal.

* The S&L crisis and bailout that resulted from the deregulation of the S&L’s cost the U.S. government $160 billion.

Is it fair to resurrect the Keating episode? As one member of the Republican ticket might say, you betcha.

If the Democrats have learned anything from their recent ineptitude in national campaigns, it’s that they must respond to Republican attacks and do so forcefully.

Remember that scene in “The Untouchables” where Sean Connery’s character Jim Malone asks Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness if he has what it takes to go after Al Capone?

Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I’m saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything within the law.
Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way. Because they’re not gonna give up the fight, until one of you is dead.
Ness: I want to get Capone! I don’t know how to do it.
Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way! And that’s how you get Capone. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I’m offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?

Is Obama ready to answer McCain attack ad for attack ad? Will he stare him down and bring the heat in Tuesday’s debate? Or will he agree with him over and over again like he did in their first meeting?

Let McCain throw the lies and innuendo. There’s enough real ammo to throw against McCain that Obama doesn’t have to resort to the same despicable tactics. However, with less than month until the final bell rings, Obama needs to let the truth fly and swing for the fences.

He does not want this decision to go the judges. They’ve already stolen one presidential election. He needs a knockout.

Here’s what other bloggers are saying:

Budsimmons @ Thoughts of a Conservative Christian builds a case against Obama as he points out that “Obama’s Connections With Bill Ayers Are Much More Extensive Than He Or His Campaign Staff Is Willing To Admit.”

@ The Confederate Yankee:

“The ties between Barack Obama and terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn go back over 21 years.

The long and short of it? Barack Obama knew, and knew well, that Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were terrorists when he met them. He just didn’t care.”

@ Four Brothers Debate Politics:

John McCain and Sarah Palin need to take a refresher course in logic. Perhaps one of the six colleges Sarah attended while earning her one four year degree will send a professor out on the campaign trail to help them improve their ability to connect the dots in a way that does not insult the intelligence of the American voter.

Jazz Shaw @ The Moderate Voice:

Why are McCain and Palin talking about Ayers right now?

The story was predictable and obvious. I’m seeing it in newspaper headlines and television shows morning, noon and night. Nobody is asking why Obama was involved in any sense with Ayers. They are asking if McCain is looking to turn the page from the economic meltdown? Are they getting desperate because they are behind? Is this a distraction?