The hoax heard 'round the world

By now, you no doubt have heard/read/watched the fallout (or I'd argue, the noted lack of fallout) from the race-baiting story on Friday - the story that McCain supporter was beaten and branded with a "B" on her cheek for having the temerity to have a McCain/Palin sticker on her car.

There was a whiff of b.s. about this story right from the start. (At right, this is how I felt about it - call the cops!) To begin with, would any reasonable person, sans the pain tolerance of a Navy SEAL, refuse medical treatment after having her face carved up/branded with a "B" on it? Please.

Well, fortunately, it didn't take long for the media to sniff out the truth behind this story. My favorite part about the whole thing (and I use that term pretty loosely, because this is a pretty sad chapter in American politics) is the fact that it makes the right-wing media and the McCain look like complete and utter jackasses. Without even finding out the real story, the right-wing nutjobs and their TV network, Faux News, practically condemned all things Obama after the story broke.

A few samples...

From the College Republican Website:

First, what the hell is wrong with you people at the Daily Kos? A women reports being robbed and assaulted and your first reaction is shes a liar and a racist? You have absolutely no reason to doubt her. [Really? How about the fact that if that "B" really was carved in her face, it would hurt like hell? That's a pretty good start.]

And what were you thinking Ace (and, to a lesser extent, Ap)? [Two blogs the site linked to, who evidently called b.s. right away on the story.] You really think every mugging and assault is caught on tape? and whose to say this preliminary report is even correct that it wasn’t caught on tape? Plus, do you really think the police would pass along fallacies about cuts on a persons face (they may well file a report by they would also note that there were no visible marks on her face if that was, in fact, the case)? and how does refusing medical attention somehow mean that she wasn't hurt?

I am disgusted by initial reactions to this story… from all sides it seems. There was no reason to legitimately doubt this story and now that there is obvious photographic evidence that this woman was indeed attacked I hope all those who instantly doubted her claims feel some shame for the crap they pulled...

Whoops!

And then, there was the chief insipid GOP mouthpiece of our time, Matt Drudge, who didn't hesitate to put the story in big, red, screaming headlines across the top of his site. It just underscores the fact that he'll spin just about anything he can find to a perceived advantage for the Republicans. This is a guy who has said publicly in the past that "he's not a journalist." (He certainly has that right.) Of course, he's a blogger, and he can publish whatever he wants, but common sense says that the should have done at least a little fact checking before running with this story. Well, common sense if he had any.

I would think even the likes of Drudge would have the decency to think for a minute before running a story with major racial implications just days before a presidential election. But, when you're dealing with someone of his ilk, I guess that really is too much to ask.

I do feel bad for the girl (at left), and I hope she gets the help she needs. Having said that, I think her doing this is at least in small part due to the hatred and fear that the right-wing media is stoking over this election. Often, the hate purveyors on the right don't even try very hard (if at all) to mask the racial and religious overtones of their hate speech. A few examples, if you will...

• Rush Limbaugh's frequent references to Obama as "Halfrican-American."

• The now infamous "Madrassa" story, perpetuated by Fox News, until it was debunked by CNN, among other media outlets.

• The pseudo-scandal about where Obama was born, and how he won't "produce a birth certificate" - the right's been pimping this story for months now, implying that he was born in Kenya, which would disqualify him from running for president. Nah, no racial implications in those allegations.

• The whispering campaign that Obama's a Muslim. No one has put it better than Colin Powell did last weekend on Meet the Press - "The correct answer to is Barack Obama a Muslim should be, why does it matter?" Just a thought - we wonder why most of the Muslim world hates us? This doesn't help. But wait - I guess because I raise this inconvenient fact, I "hate America," right? Unreal.

• Sarah Palin's "Obama palls around with terrorists" meme that was pimped over and over and over again at her campaign appearances, until she was called on it. After a little while, even she realized that this was doing much more harm than good to the McCain campaign.

• On Oct. 8, Michael Savage had this to say about Obama, as documented by Media Matters: "I fear that Obama will stir up a race war ... in order to seize absolute power." Click the link to read more, and also to listen to actual audio of Savage saying just that.

And of course, no right winger never misses an opportunity to say "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" in a deliberate attempt to stir up stereotypes and racial hatred.

My point in bringing up all of this is that the above language panders to the worst elements of society - stereotyping, racism, hatred and intolerance.

This is just a guess, and I won't try to diagnose someone from thousands of miles away, a la former Sen. Bill Frist, but maybe, just maybe, this sort of language stoked Ashley Todd's worst fears and pushed her over the edge, toward committing a shameless and desperate political hoax, out of fear of an Obama presidency. It's a fair question.