I'm a day late to the party on the Ashley Todd story. She's a real sicko. You have to have a lot of poison running through your veins to hatch the idea that you're going to turn the election to the GOP by trying to stoke that kind of fear in white people.
Less remarked upon in my reading is how stupid she obviously is too. How dumb do you have to be to forget, or never have known, that mirrors reverse images, so any "B" you carve into your own face is going to come out backwards? Just imagine the "oops" moment that took place when she finally figured out she'd done that!
More seriously, props to Greg Sargent at TPM for nailing down the fact that a paid McCain aide -- that is to say, "the McCain campaign" -- was 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.
John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."
Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.
The extent to which the hoax can be tied to the McCain camp is limited, but Sargent shows that it is real. The offending McCain officer, by the way, is named Peter Feldman.
Question: Does Todd have a future in the GOP? They'll be mad at her for a little while, because so many right-wing bloggers went so ludicrously out on the limb on this story before it was revealed to be a hoax. But time heals all. I predict that a sympathetic magazine profile is about two years away, and that she'll be an invited guest on a National Review cruise by 2011.
