Why that McCain volunteer’s “mutilation” story smells awfully weird; Update: Police to administer polygraph; conflicting evidence at scene; Update: Hoaxer confesses
Scroll down for updates…”Police planned to administer a polygraph test to Ashley Todd, 20, because her statements about the attack conflict with evidence from the Citizens Bank ATM where she claims the incident occurred, police said”…and more below on following her MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook trails…10/24…more fishiness…10/24 3:26pm Eastern….HOAXER CONFESSES
Throughout my career, I’ve covered dozens of fake hate crimes — campus hate crime hoaxes, Muslim hate crime hoaxes, fake noose hangings, etc., etc., etc. Most were perpetrated by liberals, but there have been some shameful ones on our side of the aisle as well.
I’ve reported on the great lengths that warped attention-seekers have gone to in perpetrating fake hate crimes, including beating themselves up, carving swastikas on their dorm room doors and walls, locking themselves in bathroom stalls, and burning down their own houses.
Which is why I’m not jumping up and down with outrage over Drudge-promoted story of a McCain volunteer claiming to have been attacked by a black man whom she accused of carving a “B” in her face after spotting her McCain bumper sticker.
She refused medical treatment after reporting the incident to police. Why on earth would she do that?
Look at her face (photo via Hot Air):

What’s wrong with the “B?”
I share my reader Kathy’s suspicions on this. She writes:
Notice how the “B” is backwards on the right cheek……if you were looking in a mirror and put it on your own face…it would appear backwards and would probably be on your own right cheek (due to most folks are right handed)……she put it on her own face but forgot it would show up backwards.
She may have been robbed and beaten but I think she added the “B”….
Take a close look at the picture.
Maaaaybe the alleged robber straddled her upside-down while carving it into her face.
Maybe.
But I’ve got my doubts.
(Update: And yes, as many readers have pointed out, it’s also the neatness and superficiality of that “B” that also raises red flags. See my police officer reader’s e-mail below.)
The woman has been identified as GOP volunteer Ashley Todd of Texas. Her Twitter page is here and I find it, well, odd.
This seems to me to have shades of Paul Mirecki (note that there was a photo in that case, too), Sarah Marshak, and Tawana Brawley all over it.
If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize. If I’m right, will this woman?
It needs to be said — and since it is not said often enough by those on the other side of the political aisle, I’ll say it again:
We have enough low-lifes and thugs in the world running loose and causing campaign chaos and fomenting hatred without having to make them up. I’ve been blowing the whistle on the real, left-wing rage not on the front page and in-your-face tactics throughout the election season.
Hate crimes hoaxes — by anyone, of any political persuasion, and of any color — diminish us all.
Either way, I hope that Todd gets the help she needs, that the whole truth comes out, and that justice is served on the perpetrator.
Whoever he or she may be.
***
And from a reader who is a police officer:
“I’m a cop – 8th year now – and this McCain supporter attack just didn’t pass the “smell test” as soon as I read about it.
At this point, I’ll guess the shiner was inflicted either by a friend willingly as part of this hoax or a boyfriend in a domestic dispute.
The “B” is far to[o] shallow and clean to be taken seriously. Reminds me of the stab wounds that a “hero” would get when fighting off a phantom attacker – far to[o] superficial to have been done in what is a fairly violent encounter.
Either way, I’m voting McCain
![]()
***
Update 1am Eastern: Via Pittsburgh Tribune-Review…
A knife-wielding man robbed a McCain-Palin campaign volunteer and etched a “B” into her face after he saw a McCain bumper sticker on her car, the woman told Pittsburgh police.
Police planned to administer a polygraph test to Ashley Todd, 20, because her statements about the attack conflict with evidence from the Citizens Bank ATM where she claims the incident occurred, police said.
FYI: Todd’s MySpace page has been turned private, but cached links are here.
Her Facebook profile has been deleted, but the cached front page is here.
Update 9:30am Eastern 10/24: She told police the assailant sat on her chest and pinned her hands down with his knees.
So much for all those thinking the attacker was upside-down with her head between his knees.
Update 3:26pm Eastern: I was right.
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Michelle, how come we are not talking about a beating where:
District Attorney of New York has indicted an Obama supporter that ripped a McCain sign out of the hands of a McCain supporter and beat her in the face with the wooden stick to which the sign was attached.
Or what if the woman is actually a Republican mole, pretending to be a democratic mole who would masquerade as a McCain campaign worker with the explicit intention of creating a hoax?
That way, when she is “exposed” as a Democratic mole it would actually discredit the Dems! Well…as long as they don’t find out she is actually a Republican mole…
Well played, RNC. Well played.
Whether she is a D or R doesn’t matter. If she fabricated this story, she is a cull, regardless.
Who Wants to Incite Riots and Why?
Personally I’ve got problems with the story too but as a police officer for nearly eleven years I’ve got real problems with an officer of eight years making assumptions based on one photograph. Too many time in my career I’ve seen officers discount a victim’s story just because one thing bothered him. My first FTO told me something that has stuck with me ever since, “Never make assumptions. Everyone is lying to you until you discover the truth for yourself.”
If the officer of eight years has been to the scene and has seen all the evidence then he is in a possition to express his doubts. I have not been to the scene, have only read the stories and seen the photographs. The things that raise his suspicions are probably the same things that raise mine, but I won’t go using my professional status to give greater weight to my doubts (which are purely assumptions on my part). Pitsburg PD are doing their job, I’ll let them work their crimes without interference (and if she is lying she has committed a crime) and I hope they’ll let me work mine without any from them.
I wish our damn kids would grow up!
I just don’t know, it looks like one could have used a butter knife to make that backwards “B”.
if I were going to fake a letter carved in my face, I’d realize how a mirror works, but I went to college in Austin, not College Station.
Anyhoo, real attack, fake attack, I don’t know.
But the more I learn about Obama and his mentors and associations, Frank Marshall Davis, Edward Said, Rasheed Khalili, Bernadine Dohrn, and William Ayers, the more I suspect he is a “Manchurian Candidate”, a man who will do by guile what the Weather Underground couldn’t do with bombs, destroy America as a democracy with a capitalist economic system.
Still waiting for actual evidence to backup your skepticism Michelle.
Touche.
I now grant to you, that you may glance towards the direction of our magnifigance that stands before you.
Case closed, maybe she should have gone to Blinn. Go Horns.
Still waiting for the actual evidence to back up your belief that the attack actually occurred, Patrick Britton.
On October 24th, 2008 at 11:00 am, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:
Exactly.
Violent Communist Revolutionaries.
Her story is very fishy and I agree with MM not wanting to jump on the ‘See what BO supporters did!’ bandwagon. Let it be proven before we go there. Jumping on it just because its not out of the realm of reality can only hurt us if it is a false claim.
Barrack and his supporters hand us enough proven dirt as it is. No need to help him by using unproven allegations.
Anyone going to publish the latest story of a McCain HQ manager’s house getting shot up?
You’re just begging chappy to write one of his posts on Todd Palin’s possible income tax problems.
Even better idea would be to let whoever gave her the bruises for this fake attack(if it is fake)carve the “B”, no mirror necessary.
There is a very important point to be made here. The closing weeks of this campaign will be similar to the closing weeks of the 2004 campaign when there was a lot of violence perpetrated by Democrats on Republicans and their property.
Just yesterday, I was walking past a car with a McCain/Palin sign on it. Someone, and it is virtually certain that it was a Democrat Obama supporter, had thrown a cup of coffee or some other brown liquid on the sign. They could have cared less it damage was done to the car
These left-wing entitlement bozos think they have a right to abuse people just because those people disagree with socialism. If I catch one of them in the act, I am calling the cops. If the cops don’t respond, I am going to the newspapers.
Off topic GOLD.
Now she’s saying the guy sexually assaulted her.
Miz Just
A more objective observer may realize this is just another example of the incredible bias the MSM and its entertainment arm have, but last nights gig was sort of funny, and the now censored sketch showing how Dems and their supporters created the current economic crisis suggests one closet conservative on the SNL writing staff.
On October 24th, 2008 at 11:40 am, publiuswarmac9999 said:
It’s not economics (capitalism vs. socialism) that leads people to perform acts of destruction and violence.
It’s this:
The only way to counteract that is with this truth:
It’s not economics, it’s spiritual warfare.
Jesus Christ (the truth) works through His people,
and Satan (the thief) works through his people.
Speaking of hoaxes,
BHO appears to be one of biggest hoaxers of all time…
I think the picture is bigger than this:
It’s a genuine lack of concern, respect and care for your fellow man. We, as a society have become so consumed with ourselves that we are blind about anything that doesn’t relate directly to us. Complete disrepect runs ramapant. Case in point. I saw an article in a magazine that was titled “What your lipstick says about you.” We are consumed by anything that has to do with me, myself, and I.
On October 24th, 2008 at 12:19 pm, Misscheryl said:
It’s the result of multiple generations of demoralization.
How about a polygraph for Barack Obama?
What is the truth about his birth?
What is the truth about his relationship with Bill Ayers?
What is the truth about his belief in Jesus Christ?
Well….there’s always that video of the McCain supporters walking through that street fair on the Upper Left Side of Manhattan back in mid-September to show the extreme unbridled hatred from the Libs.
The idea that what makes me “feel” good is what is important. Self-Esteem above all else. No one fails. Free lunches. Everyone should go to college no matter the ablility and the government will pay…
The effects of a system of education gone awry…
California Schools are PUSHING to have an admendment on the ballot fail that would require parent notification of abortions for minors! “Education leaders across the state have endorsed the NO on Prop 8 campaign”
Hey ITookTheRedPill, regarding BHO’s birth certificate; I have mention a number of times that Obama himself continues to get his own age wrong. Funn, isn’t it?
I am disappointed that Michelle of all people would take up the MSM line that this girl is faking this.
In order to doubt the girl, you have to make the ridiculous leap of logic that the robber is smarter than the 20 year old girl.
You have to believe that this 20 year old Republican girl is too stupid to realize she is carving the letter “B” backwards.
Then you have to believe that a moron that would rob someone would be too smart to carve the letter “B” backwards. Has anyone considered that the moron was a dropout and could not read or write?
Come on folks, wake up.
No, now you are just finding out.
Some of you folks are sheep.
Well, according to the alleged victim, he could at least read “McCain/Palin” on the bumper sticker.
Yeah, I see they’re avoiding Obama related sketches also. They were pretty rough on him during the primaries. The Obama angle will be interesting on SNL and the late night shows in the coming years….if he wins. Can they pull off the tightrope balance of race related humor? Will they just make fun of his celebrity status? I wish Dave Chappelle was still around.
10 bucks says Corsi will be on Hannity’s America this Sunday with breaking news that Barack Hussein Obama is the perp in this attack.
I still have the image of Chappelle, playing Obama, at the inauguration. Right after the oath is administered Obama rips out a Koran and a sword and screams “Allahu Akbar motha****ers! I fooled y’all!” before beheading Justice Roberts.
That would be an awesome skit.
She really need to make up her mind.
This girl is going to be smeared worse than Joe the Plumber ever dreamed of.
It’s best to be more skeptical of media reports than this girl.
That’s as far as I got on this story. “AP”. I didn’t believe anything afterwards.
Cocaine is a hellva drug!
So he was a left-handed dyslexic!
What has me stunned though – Texas has colleges…
You’re not seriously claiming that the RNC wouldn’t try this are you? Two words – Lindsey Graham.
Stay tuned.
Brilliant idea. Somewhere Bear and Redpill aren’t laughing.
Breaking: Wackadoodle “attack” victim Ashley Todd tapped to be Mike Huckabee’s running mate his already unsuccessful 2016 Presidential bid. Todd said to be “considering her options.” Details to come as they unfold.
Wait, there are some “inconsistencies” in this report (not from the girl, but from the “reporter”):
1. 5 hours of questioning? (Attack 9pm. Reported to police 45 minutes later. She went to hospital at 1am.) That’s only 3 hours!
2. She declined medical treatment? I thought she went to the hospital? Which is it?
Michelle, Do you trust this college girl? Or do you trust some unnamed AP reporter?
I have wondered why I have seen so little coverage of McCain/Palin supporters being attacked in NYC.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-supporter-assaults-female-mccain-volunteer-in-new-york/
He actually read “nilaP\niaCcM” which is why he was so enraged.
I wouldn’t get carried away there, Chaps.
MJ:
You don’t appreciate the likes of Hannity, Rush, or Levin because you don’t get them and despise them. As do most liberals who don’t listen to their shows and think talk radio is “hate speech.” Anybody who says anything remotely opposition-like regarding Saint Obummer is a heretic.
You really need to get over the rage. I hear prayer and a good therapist does wonders.
aloha guy – you crack me up!
Actually Texas universities and colleges are just an illusion. They were soley created to support the football teams! Go SOONERS!
hmmm… I wonder which part of the story was made up. Some or all?
http://kdka.com/local/attack.McCain.Bloomfield.2.847628.html
Hot Air links to the above. She has admitted that it’s a hoax. Dippy little twit.
You seem a little desperate to keep this going. I think it’s obvious she made up the whole thing.
Well, I don’t know how many 20 somethings read these posts, but it is hoped that they learn a lesson from this….. I’m suspect that now more ammo is given the MSM and liberals to paint our cause badly. But I offer a warning to anyone using this as a weapon…… payback is a motha and the Conservatives out there who are disenfranchised at this moment are going to wreak havoc…. you’ve been warned. Now, back on topic… prosecute her!
This is one sick little puppy. Get her to a shrink fast!
Fair enough, seems even more evidence is out and she probably made up most of the story. Call me gullible, I wanted to be sure before calling anyone a liar.
That’s why Michelle is the pro and I’m just the noob.
Update: She just copped to making up the story.
What will the impact of this crazy have on the election? I am sure MSM will use this a sproof that the Republicans are evil.
Rob said:
liberal education IS demoralization…
It is exactly what Yuri Bezmenov was talking about…
If you break “demoralization” into “de-moral-ization”, it is an educational system that is completely devoid of morality.
Our country was founded as a Christian Nation, and Presidents throughout our history have spoken about the importance of a moral foundation upon which our government rests. If you destroy the moral foundation, you destroy the goverment.
If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.
My sincere apologies for to Michelle Malkin for doubting her doubts. I am surprised that I am even surprised by this at this point. Giving herself a punch in the face hard enough for both eyes to be blackened sold me. It’s only about the 10 billionth lie in this campaign though. Regardless, I was wrong.
Ditto
She heard you can get a book deal.
What stunned me was I thought all college chicks in texas were blond and hot.
HAH!!!!
On October 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm, California Red said:
Find out if she is really a Republican, or if she is really a Democrat trying to smear Republicans.
Chap. I expected better. ***wags finger***
Hey I may be a soulless scum sucker. But I’m a guy too.
I’m so sorry Michelle. Your skepticism was well placed, and I’m far too gullible.
Throw her in jail.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but as a liberal I wouldn’t think of using this story “against” conservatives. It’s obvious to me this woman needs some mental help. She happened to wrap her distress in a political blanket.
I am bummed Drudge reported it in the way he did. He framed the story as a McCain campaign worker being targeted by a Obama supporter, just to elevate the story and freak people out.
In reality, the narrative she laid out suggested she was robbed at random and was beaten for her political beliefs only after the assailant noticed her political leanings.
Anyway, just want to say I’m not one to use this story for political gain.
While we’re on the topic of fraud…whatever happened to the Columbia professor who claimed a noose was left on her door?
If this was already covered in a previous post that I happen to miss, please someone refresh my memory.
Check out Foxnews.com: She reportedly has admitted to making it up.
She was fired from Columbia for plagerism. No word on the noose issue.
This is a woman who didn’t think to draw the “B” backwards on her face. I think it’s safe to say that her ability to plan convoluted plots with evil genius-like twists and turns has been proven nonexistent.
MM, you were right to be skeptical!
Yeah, I guess you’re right. Nevermind.
That she made it up doesn’t surprise me in the least. I thought it smelled funny from the beginning, especially after first seeing the pic. What an idiot.
As far as her leaving and going to a friend’s house…
In 1991 I was working on a film and had the day off. It was a Sunday at 4:30 in the afternoon and I was walking between Hollywood and Sunset right next to the old Warehouse R3cods that used to be there when I was held-up at gun point by three Mexicans with a fourth in a car waiting for them. They took everything off of me, sat me down behind a low cement fence and held the gun to my head, threatening to kill me. At the time I was about to become a father for the first time and my only thoughts were of the child who would grow up fatherless.
For whatever reason, they took off, got in the car and sped away. I got up, ran to the closest business and told the owner what happened, asking to use the phone. He reluctantly..and I stress RELUCTANTLY let me use the phone, as he told me it was not for public use etc., and rather than call the cops right away, I called my friend who I was staying with to come pick me up as I wanted the F**K out of there before they came back.
After I was safe at home, we then called the police. When they arrived to take my statement, I found out that they were considering it some sort of gang initiation, and that several other people were hit there as well, with the person who was robbed right after I was being pistol-whipped.
I do not fault her for leaving in the least. You do not want to stay somewhere that has already been proven dangerous. You need to get where you are and feel safe.
It is not necessarily the mugging/assault that I personally question, but rather the “B” alledgedly placed on her face by her assailant. It could be that they, (her and her friend) decided to get some mileage out of this and wrongly think they would be helping McCain, or maybe it actually did happen, as we already have the police across this nation going on alert and setting up SWAT teams to be ready on Nov. 4/5 should Obama lose and his “supporters” follow up on their promises to riot following this country coming to their senses and not electing him.
I live in probably the most Democratic town in the U.S. AND I’ve done volunteer work for the Obama campaign through a handful of grassroots groups and I’ve not heard one single person since the election began talk about rioting, regardless of election outcome. Not one.
MM, I concur with others. You were right to be suspicious.
Notice how conservatives/republicans are giving her the once over (sometimes twice)?
I wish people like lgm would do the same when a dimocrap gets caught instead of finding someone who is worse.
Weren’t you one of the ones that Howard Stern had interviewed nyk?
That’s how I knew she was lying – when she claimed to be a Texas college chick. They are all blonde and hot. She looks more Vermont to me.
(It’s a joke, Vermonters need not attack…)
nyk:
I’m with you on that one. I think (and hope) that predictions of rioting after the election if Obama loses are overblown. There may be a few creeps (there are always a few creeps), but I have my doubts about this getting THAT ugly.
Charge this idiot with whatever crime is applicable to what she did and be done with it. She shouldn’t be considered important enough to sway anyone one way or another.
Here’s another link…..
I thought the same thing!
I am disappointed it’s not a left handed dyslexic though. The “rehsalS sht eoJ ma I” YouTubes would have been fascinating.
She is an ‘Aggie’. They are well meaning folks, many go on to serve in the Army, as A&M is one of three colleges in America besides the service academies that can commission officers outside of an ROTC program, if memory serves me correctly, but, well, they make jokes about Aggies. Like the politically incorrect ‘blond’ jokes, or ‘Polish jokes’ one hears sometimes, except the stereotypes tend to be rooted in truth.
Now, I went to a college noted as one of the best public universities in America, but it has more than its share of dope smokers and loonie liberals, and it is in perhaps the whackiest LLL college town outside of Berkeley and Madison, so no place is perfect.
Just a sample
I wonder if this isn’t going to cause a HUGE backlash. Campaigns have turned on stupider things than this and I suspect the MSM will now start the incessant chants of “racist, bigot” in an even more blatant effort to shame people into voting for Obamassiah….
What was this idiot girl thinking? Every time I speak with someone under 30 I am shocked by the stupid things they say or confess to doing. If she is the future of the nation we are in much worse shape than I imagined.
This is just another reason I no longer consider myself a Republican. The GOP has become as stupid as the Democrats.
We home school our kids and even my 6 year-old knows better than to do something this idiotic.
Please, somebody prove me wrong!
No. I wasn’t one of “the ones.” Don’t quit your current day job, which clearly doesn’t demand that you be funny in any way.
I agree.
Apparently, filing the false report is merely a misdemeanor, so I doubt she’ll be breaking rocks in the hot sun anytime soon. And reports are that she has a history of mental illness. I think it’s obvious she’s sick. They should get her whatever help she needs.
Which brings us to Tony Romo…
Just broke on Drudge.
She confessed that she made the whole thing up.
This young lady’s problems have just started.
I hate fakers.
Whoa, it’s not that big a deal. She has a problem, and it’s not politics.
You two are dreaming again!
Your average 20-something doesn’t fake being robbed and sliced for attention. People who do things like this have problems that extend far beyond youth.
Looks like the girl needs some help…if so that’s sad.
Fishy from the start. Have to give Michelle credit for not running with it when the news broke of the “attack”
This won’t make a spot of difference to the McCain/Palin campaign. It was gracious of Palin to call her in the first place.
snort!
Yes, nothing political here, she has a problem that needs medical help.
It is Friday afternoon is it not?
I won’t. That wouldn’t pay off until jan. 20th anyway.
Oh, well, yeah that explains this sick puppie but what about Tom Davis, George Bush, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, and all the idiot GOP Senators who voted for the bailout? Stupid is as stupid does.
The GOP is as stupid and as corrupt as the Dems and cannot be trusted.