Pretty Disgusting

KDKA in Pittsburgh is now reporting that Ashley Todd--the McCain volunteer who claimed to have been attacked and maimed by a black man because of her support for John McCain--has confessed to having made up the whole thing.

It's a really sick story and the worst part about it--by far--is the way many on the Right ran with the story even though all signs pointed to hoax and--worst of all--despite the obvious fact that, even if the story had been true, it had absolutely no relevance whatsoever to Obama or his campaign.

Throughout the night and most of the day today, the Drudge Report has breathlessly hyped this story. Over at the National Review, the conservative flagship publication, Andy McCarthy linked to the story with a post headlined "Change, the 'Direct Action' Way — McCain Supporter Beaten and 'B' Branded in Pittsburgh." John Hindraker at Powerline took the story at face value and commented:

I also think that a great many voters, some of them heretofore uncommitted, will see this incident as symbolic of a race in which every voter who has not jumped on the Obama bandwagon has been subject to various forms of harassment and bullying.

Erick Erickson at Redstate also took the story at face value and instantly knew where to assign the blame:

I lay this at the feet of the mainstream media.

At Newsbusters, Noel Sheppard also lashed out at the media for being skeptical of Todd's story:

Isn't skepticism a great thing? Think media outlets would be this skeptical if Todd was a black Obama volunteer and her alleged assailant was a white McCain supporter?

The reliably deranged Dan Riehl reacted to the story this way:

Obama's run his campaign just like a street thug out of Chicago. Now we get to see what some of his worst supporters are like.

Don't tell me - after Obama passes his welfare-like tax plan guys like this won't be forced to rob and maim innocent people, right? Yeah, sure.

This a truly vile hoax, perpetrated by someone who has serious issues. But let's face it, there are crazy people out there.

The most disturbing part of this episode for me is the way major right wing players reacted to it. Matt Drudge didn't just link to the story, he linked to it with huge red blaring headlines at the top of his site and an enormous picture of the alleged victim. He did that because he thought this story--a young white woman being attacked viciously by a black Obama supporter--would awaken people's racial fears and hurt Barack Obama in the polls. He can deny that all he wants, but it's as plain as day. Those who chose to hype this story were not doing so because it actually had any relevance to anything. They were doing so because they thought it could be politically damaging to Barack Obama. They were trying to reawaken age-old racial fears.

And sadly, it wasn't just right wing bloggers. Apparently the McCain campaign was pushing this story aggressively behind the scenes (I'm not implying that they had any knowledge it was a hoax, just that they thought it would help them politically).

That's a sad commentary on the state of right wing discourse. The only encouraging thing was that there were some on the Right--Michelle Malkin in particular--who were immediately skeptical of the story (as they should have been) and tried to pour cold water on it before their colleagues walked too far out on the limb. It didn't work.

UPDATE: Somehow I missed this in my original tour of the right wing blogosphere. Pamela Geller jumped all over this story. Then she updated the post with a picture of Todd and wrote the following:

Shame on those that doubted this poor girl. Always ready to jump on the side of the leftists and thugs. ugh.

Above the picture she wrote:

The new face of the Republican party.

Indeed.