Was Ashley Todd subtly encouraged by the McCain/Palin campaign?

[mzmolly]

I recently posted a statement signed by nearly 100 Communications Professors from across the nation. See - http://politicalcommunication.info/Home_Page.html">McCain/Palin Campaign Stoking the Fires of Racism

Today Professor Schiappa added the following commentary in regard to the Todd hoax http://politicalcommunication.info/Hoax_in_Pittsburgh.html">HERE

As most people have heard by now, 20-year-old Ashley Todd from Texas was doing volunteer work for the McCain/Palin campaign in Pittsburgh and alleged that she was robbed Wednesday night by a large black man. When the assailant saw a McCain sticker on her car, she says she was attacked by the man and the letter “B” was marked on her face with a knife. CNN

For an example of TV News coverage of this story, see the following: KDKA

John Moody, Executive Vice President of Fox News called it “a moment of truth”: “If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee. If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”

See: FOXFORUM

Now Ms. Todd has confessed to making it all up: BREITBART.TV

Let us be clear that there is no reason to believe this was orchestrated by the McCain/Palin national campaign. At the same time, the incident illustrates the point of the critique of the campaign provided http://politicalcommunication.info/Home_Page.html">HERE. Ashley Todd was telling the same sort of tale told in the south to justify discrimination against African Americans, from Jim Crow laws to lynching: Alleged black crimes against innocent white women. The headline on the Drudge Report screamed “MCCAIN VOLUNTEER 'ATTACKED AND MUTILATED' IN PITTSBURGH.” Other websites picked up the thread with titles such as “OBAMA SUPPORTER ATTACKS MCCAIN VOLUNTEER AND MUTILATES HER FACE!” YouTube was the site of instant reactions such as “Obama supporter brutalizes & mutilates McCain volunteer!”

John Moody has it right: Ms. Todd’s story is an extreme version of an old race-baiting narrative.

This statement is by Edward Schiappa and does not necessarily represent the views of the Signatories of the Public Statement on the frontpage of this website.

While I agree that the McCain camp was not directly involved in Ashley Todd's wild lie. I have to ask, if McCain's campaign had not dug down into the gutter in order to try an win an election, would Ms. Todd have been inspired to concoct her dangerous, racially motivated fantasy?

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[mzmolly]

3. Thanks Solly.

:hi:

[Solly Mack]

8. It was McCain's Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman

and he latched onto that story and ran with it.

He stoked the fires..and you just know he could taste it.

[mzmolly]

23. This should be the nail

in the proverbial coffin for them. :(

[Solly Mack]

25. McCain will claim he had no control - and that is probably the truth, but still

After all those hate-filled rallies? To do this?

This really should be it for him.

[pokerfan]

61. McCain's tacit approval

Seriously, if he can't control his own campaign, how can he be expected to manage a presidential administration? He walks around pretending to be above the fray while his minions do his dirty work. There's good reason he has a hard time looking Obama in the eye; in his heart he knows he has run a slimy, dishonorable campaign.

[mzmolly]

64. An excellent point.

:hi:

[Solly Mack]

66. Excellent point about McCain!!

and it would be in keeping with his known past behavior....

[Snotcicles]

2. If they were involved, she is on her own now. nt

[mzmolly]

5. I don't think they were directly

involved. I just think she's a vulnerable girl who was influenced by her own issues as well as perhaps the rhetoric coming out of the McCain camp? :shrug:

[John Q. Citizen]

11. Except the Repos spokesman had a detailed story before the press reported it.

So where did they get their details from?

[mzmolly]

14. I just head that!

WOAH!

[Mist]

26. Yep--it seems the McCain campaign knew the details before anyone

else. It seems they were the ones to call Sludge, which is why he had a detailed story so early.

[juajen]

4. I believe the RNC would have done a better job. She was really obvious.

[mzmolly]

6. I don't think they were directly

involved at all. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

[Rocknrule]

7. She even looks like Mayella Ewell

[Junkdrawer]

9. See this thread...I initially thought no, but it turns out that the McCain camp....

pushed this story to the media...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4303237

[Mari333]

10. this has happened before, check this out....from 2006

Alleged political hate crime not what it seemed
By Drew Philp
On October 2nd, 2006
Justin Zatkoff, executive director of the Michigan Federation of College Republicans, said he does not remember who gave him this black eye and other injuries on Sept. 23. (BEN SIMON/Daily)

Angela Cesere

Despite a national whirlwind of speculation, political finger-pointing and a nasty black eye, police said rumors surrounding the assault of an Oakland University student who woke up beaten and bruised in Ann Arbor on the night of Sept. 23 are false.

Ann Arbor police said Justin Zatkoff, the executive director of the Michigan Federation of College Republicans, was not attacked by "liberal thugs," as posted on the conservative blog truthcaucus.com.
















http://www.michigandaily.com/content/alleged-political-hate-crime-not-what-it-seemed

[mzmolly]

12. Good grief!

:(

[Mari333]

13. Maybe it's like an initiation or something for young republicans

to join, you have to fake a black eye and say liberals / black people/ etc,beat you up.

[mzmolly]

17. It sure

seems an odd "hobby" eh?

[underpants]

24. Another good little soldier for the cause

Now wonder where they might think they have to pull something like that off to move up in the RNC.....hmm .... ROVE maybe?

[Mist]

27. Ashley Todd is a College Republican field representative, not just some

over-the-top volunteer. I mean yeah, she's over the top, but the campaign at the very least used her, and at worst, helped her with the planning. IMO.

Apparently, the College Rethugs have been weird, fierce, and out of control ever since Jack Abramoff ran College Rethugs back in the day (early 80s).

[Oak2004]

58. We were that in the 70's too, though it escalated over the years n/t

[TomInTib]

28. Wow. Good catch. nt

[fourvahl]

33. wow..

This needs to get out there. This is becoming a trend.

[lonestarnot]

34. It's the thugliCON game.

[PatSeg]

60. It is all a game to them

and the object is to win, win at any cost. It is a mindless and dangerous game.

[JackRiddler]

15. I'd go further...

The whole permanent victim mentality of the right-wing yahoo, who in fantasy is constantly terrorized by blacks, gays, and liberals, encouraged her to express her self-destructive mental illness in this fashion.

But she's still sick in the head, you know.

[crossroads]

16. She's a sad product of Rush and Faux Noise imo!

She was definately fed lots of hate... and this was the result!

[pitohui]

18. "subtly" ????

my guess is she was paid but they'll never admit it

certainly they played strongly on an unstable girl's psychology

[Tutonic]

19. Of course they were involved. Any half-wit with a 60 IQ would have

known that her story stank like a three day old fish. And therein lies the rub. They should have sat her down and said "Ashley, you go home and sleep this off." They know that she's unstable. They can look at the picture andsee that the B is backwards and that her eye is not actually swollen. They were hoping that the KKK lynchmob would string up a black man before the truth surfaced. They were wrong.

[lunatica]

20. McCain/Palin campaign is anything but subtle

They've been hitting everyone over the head with their banshee screaming negative barely disguised racist allegations and their 'real' Americans talk.

Little 'Ms. B' is no innocent victim of subtlety. She swung a sledgehammer only it landed on her instead of her intended victims.

[mzmolly]

21. Keith and Eugene Robinson esentially discussing the same question I posed above

now.

[mzmolly]

22. Thanks for the mystery recs guys.

:hi:

[ihavenobias]

29. K & R

[nichomachus]

30. The McCain campaign gave her tacit permission to do this with its vile tactics

just as right-wing clergy enable gay-bashers with their over-the-top rhetoric.

[EFerrari]

31. There has been nothing subtle about it.

Obama was hung in effigy in Fairfield, OH.

Armeggedon Spice has been hosting Klan meetings. She's fresh out of every white supremacist org in Alaska. And McBigot has signed off on ALL OF IT. He doesn't like "gooks", remember?

[mzmolly]

38. "Armageddon Spice"

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

41. I think that is Phred's.

:)

[mzmolly]

44. It's gooooood!

Too bad "Scary Spice" was taken huh? LOL

[GhostofRichardRorty]

32. K&R: This is what we would call "mutual reinforcement"

No question that poor Ashley thought she was doing the right thing for McCain by feeding into the racist spin of the campaign, and in turn, the PA Republicans took it and ran with it. I find the initial YouTube videos particularly frightening and hateful. The chain reaction here is scary: McCain/Palin push race fears, Ashley reacts and in turn fuels the fire, then McCain's Penn representatives fan it. Imagine if Ashley had gone into a bar instead of a police station and wailed that she had been attacked by an Obama supporter. Not a far step from that to a race riot.

[mzmolly]

35. Absolutely.

"Imagine if Ashley had gone into a bar instead of a police station and wailed that she had been attacked by an Obama supporter. Not a far step from that to a race riot."

I shudder at the thought.

[EFerrari]

36. How do you know what she thought?

[mzmolly]

37. All any of us can do is give an

educated opinion on her motivations after reading/researching what we can on the matter Sfexpat.

Be nice!! :spank: ;)

:hi:

[EFerrari]

39. The question is perfectly neutral.

[mzmolly]

43. I dunno...

We don't know for example that Bush "lied" unless we know what he thought and/or believed prior to his remarks on the War. All any of us can do is surmise. That's a given.

Edited for grammar.

[EFerrari]

49. You might be interested in #6 in this thread. It's an article

that goes into more detail than we've been given so far:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7600221

:hi:

[mzmolly]

52. Very interesting.

:wow:

[malaise]

63. Thanks for that link

Drip, drip, drip...we will know the truth eventually.

[Solly Mack]

67. Thanks for posting that!

[GhostofRichardRorty]

46. Of course we can't know her private thoughts

No one can ever claim definitively to know the thoughts and intentions of others. True enough. In social psychological terms, behavior is often explain by making a combination of internal "dispositional" attribution (that is, she wanted to help the cause, or she is mentally unbalanced, etc.) or external "situational" attributions (that is, the McCain/Palin campaign created a context in which her actions appeared appropriate). I don't see a scenario that lets the campaign off the hook. Even if she is totally crazy, she made a concerted effort to convey a very specific message. That message was instantly and enthusiastically taken up by the Penn McCain campaign people. Bottom line, at least to me, is no matter how one tries to explain her behavior, the hoax plus the McCain/Drudge/Hannity response is appalling.

[EFerrari]

48. Oh, I see. Yes, even if she is very suggestible, that specific suggestion

was right out there to be taken up. She does, however seem to have a pattern of making false accusations and in a political context. She was dismissed from the Ron Paul campaign for doing that.

So, it also maybe the case in part, that she seeks out situations where similar suggests are found. lol

[mzmolly]

53. Do you have a link to the Ron Paul

story Sfexpat?

[EFerrari]

54. It's in the link I gave you above in #49.

There's a LOT in that article. :wow:

[mzmolly]

56. I'm

sorry I just saw that you did not link directly to post #6. Off to finish the article. :hi: I see that she was fired for lying, but the situation was quite a bit different. It's good that she was found out so soon that she was full of mularkey. ;)

[mzmolly]

57. Please pardon

my previous grammar challenged reply. ;) That's what I get for multitasking and DU-ing at the same time huh?

[EFerrari]

59. It's my fault for not just reposting it. Coffee challenged this morning!

:)

[mzmolly]

65. LOL

Understood. :)

[eowyn_of_rohan]

40. hmmm...wonder if she was the racist idiot who called our house on behalf of the McCain campaign

last week. Just kidding- i'm sure there are hundreds of equally ignorant idiots making calls from Texass, but last Tuesday or Wednesday a girl called from Texas called - my husband, a registered Independant, took it and she started out asking if he knew that Obama's middle name was Hussein. Went on to say he was for killing Jews, that his father was a Muslim terrorist, etcetc... he grilled her on and on, just to mess with her mind, but I felt he wasn't harsh enough on her, and I wish I had taken the call. She would have had an entirely different experience.

[mzmolly]

45. It's the culture of

fear and hate they're preying on and encouraging that is so dangerous. I've gotten disgusting mailings and phone calls as well. Unfortunately I've not had the pleasure of picking up the phone and getting a live person.

McCain recently declared that he is "proud of his supporters" ... I bet he is, considering they appear to be taking direction quite well.

Good for your husband BTW! :toast:

[Junkdrawer]

42. I think Dan Garcia (College Republican) was the "brains" behind the B-Girl fiasco...

Read between the lines:

....

Todd drove to the Bloomfield home of her friend, Dan Garcia, and told him the attack story. Garcia said he called 911.

"I believed she was telling the truth," said Garcia, 32, a first-year University of Pittsburgh law student. "This seemed like the real deal."

....

Garcia said he met Todd among Republican circles in College Station. They were not close friends but had been virtual friends on the Internet site Facebook. Traveling around New York and Pennsylvania to campaign for the McCain-Palin ticket, she had spent the previous Friday and Saturday nights at his house, but Garcia said he had not seen her since then.

Todd called Garcia's cell phone at 8:56 p.m. Wednesday and asked if she could come over. When she arrived, Garcia thought the etched "B" looked like it could have come from the pin of a campaign button.

Garcia said he accepted her story, partly because Todd told him that she was a student at Texas A&M, where he had graduated in May. It was important, he said, to get out the message to other alumni and Republicans.

A Texas A&M official said Todd has never been a student at the school. People who knew Todd from Texas said they believe she has attended Blinn College, a community college in Bryan, Texas. A woman in the Blinn registrar's office said it would be "completely against the law" for her to release, confirm or provide any information about a student's status at the college.

Garcia said he only started to fully doubt the details of the story when police brought them in for questioning Thursday evening, and the session lasted more than five hours.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_595166.html

[mzmolly]

47. Sheesh I hope it wasn't a

conspiracy of sorts. Either way, what was the point of "getting out the message?"

I'm physically ill after reading that.

[EFerrari]

50. Maybe this one but she's done this routine before

and was fired for it from the Paul campaign.

[malaise]

51. Bingo

So who is he?

[Junkdrawer]

55. More details in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette...

...

Garcia, 32, a first-year student at the University of Pittsburgh law school who also is from Texas, met Ms. Todd in May at a gathering of young Republicans in their hometown of College Station.Wednesday night, she came back to his house, bruised and battered, and told him of the attack. He contacted police.

Mr. Garcia said his immediate response was to tend to the wound on her cheek. A police officer arrived, and Ms. Todd became belligerent when the officer asked where the mugging happened.

"I don't know!" she told him, using an expletive, Mr. Garcia said. "I'm not from here."

Mr. Garcia, Ms. Todd and the officer then drove through Bloomfield until they arrived at the Citizens Bank on Liberty Avenue. She told the officer it was the right spot. Assistant Chief Bryant said yesterday police aren't even sure Ms. Todd was in that area Wednesday night.

The officer asked Ms. Todd if she needed medical attention. She declined. Instead, Mr. Garcia said, they went to eat at Ritter's Diner on Baum Boulevard. He then persuaded her to go to nearby UPMC Shadyside, where he waited for her until 2 a.m.

"I don't know why she would do this," Mr. Garcia said yesterday, after learning that she had fabricated the story. "I would think that she needs help.

"I had red flags going up, but I didn't think it was prudent of me to ask the truth. I wanted to make sure she was OK."

Now Mr. Garcia says he is furious that Ms. Todd deceived him. He has cut off all contact with her, he said.

Garcia took the widely published picture of Ms. Todd with her injuries. He said he took several photographs with a digital camera to document what had happened. He said he only gave copies of the photos to police and Ms. Todd's employer, the College Republicans. One photo appeared on The Drudge Report on Thursday, setting off a storm of media attention.

...



http://www.postgazette.com/pg/08299/922849-53.stm

[malaise]

62. So the college Rethugs sent the photo to Drudge

or is he a member?

She's really dumb. I don't go anywhere unfamiliar without checking its location and directions on the internet.

[lib2DaBone]

68. Let me be a tin-foiler here and say she was probablly Paid by McCain...