Horrifying attack on McCain supporter in Pittsburgh; Update: Daily Kos has no sympathy, neither do conservatives?

UPDATE: ASHLEY TODD ADMITS TO POLICE THAT SHE MADE THE WHOLE THING UP (Click here for details)

Follow this link for more Updates on this story. Is it real or a hoax? You tell me

According to the Pittsburgh police, Shortly before 9 p.m. October 22nd a woman was robbed at knife point while making a transaction at an ATM in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

After the man took $60 dollars from the victim he reportedly noticed that there was a John McCain sticker on the victim’s car which enraged him. The 6’4″ 200 pound man then proceeded to punch and kick the victim before finally using his knife to “scratch” the letter B into her face.

Here is the original story.

Here is a more in depth story (video included).

UPDATE: If anybody was still doubting how deprived the far left nut jobs over at the Daily Kos are why don’t you take a look at their reaction to this story…

Here are some comments that sum up the level of hate for the victim in this story:

By ksh01:

Interesting that it happened “outside of the view of the bank’s surveillance cameras” and that the injuries were such that she refused medical treatment and they didn’t overrule that.

By dworth:

Aha… Never doubt the victim, especially when it’s a woman…

but…

By ksh01:

yeah, you’re right. I get a little skeptical when these types of stories crop up with no verification or witnesses and such an unusual injury that feeds into a “white fright” scenario in a state with a rural racial divide.

By dworth:

Don’t blame you… their crazies are nuts enough to cut their own faces at this point…

but we just don’t know. So we just have to see what she can prove or not.

By ksh01:

considering she sought no medical treatment for a facial injury, I’d have to see it to believe her face was cut. […]

By Mogolori:

McCain needs race riots to turn the tide. That’s his only hope. Expect more of these “stories.”

By GlowNZ:

let me guess shes a white female right?
imagine the visuals of that, a white female being attacked by a black guy…

Yup, that’s right, she’s a lying racist who wants to incite race riots by cutting her own face in order to get John McCain elected president.

But what shocks me more is that Ace of Spades seems to of had a similar first reaction too (at least on two points)… and Allah Pundit over at Hot air even said some of Ace’s post made “good points”.

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.

And what were you thinking Ace (and, to a lesser extent, Ap)? 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…

In case you were looking, here’s the picture of the injuries Ashley Todd, the victim, sustained:

*Disclaimer* I am not trying to put Ace of spades or Allah Pundit on the same level as anybody at the Daily Kos. It seems to me that they considered these claims because they were being overly cautious where as the DK crowd pushed these claims because they hate anybody politically opposed to them. Besides both Ace and AP gave up these ridiculous claims once more evidence of the attack came to light.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin jumps on the “shes probably a liar” bandwagon… What is going on? I get the desire for caution but geeze. Yea there absolutely have been hoaxes before but what reason do we really have to believe this is one? Because she didn’t go to the hospital immediately (she went today reportedly)? Because the B carved into her face is backwards?

First, she obviously wasn’t horribly maimed (as the photo shows) so who cares if she went to the hospital? After all she is a college student and being an expert on college students, since I am one, hospital trips are damn expensive and I probably wouldn’t have gone if I only had some bruises and a not-so-deep cut. So lets all just get over this idiotic “she didn’t immediately rush to the hospital” criticism.

Second, the appearance in the picture that the “B” on her face is backwards PROVES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. There are a million different reasons it is that way, the positions the two people where in when he cut her, the picture could be backwards, the mugger did it that way on purpose for whatever reason, the mugger is an illiterate dumb ass who writes his Bs backwards (after all he is mugging people), or, yes, she may have done it herself, along with beating herself, for attention.

But lets just think about the assertion that she faked this for a second, since thats all the rage. For that to be true and for the hoax to not have been disproven nearly immedaitly by the police this woman would have had to go to this atm, a place with multiple surveillance cameras, take out money, find the blind spots of the bank’s cameras, beat herself up (or get someone to beat her up), then cut a B into her face (and since the B on her face is backwards that rules out someone else doing it, at least according to the “its a hoax” folks), then call the police and fake her way through the whole story.

Is this scenario possible? Sure. Does it seem likely at this point? Not to me.

There just simply isn’t any good reason to think this woman is pulling a hoax, especially since she wasn’t the one who went public with this information and, at least according to some of her twitter posts (by the way I wanna know what Malkin finds odd about Ashley Todd’s twitter), doesn’t even seem all that shaken up by this event. Those things all reinforce the idea that she isn’t pulling a hoax. And all the information we currently have makes me, at the very least, grant her the benefit of the doubt.

But I guess the concept of benefit of a doubt is dead for most others… I guess we will see who is right.

UPDATE: Seems that a celebrity gossip blog posting (right after a post on David Becham’s spitting habits, great source) and a upside down “B” prove everything now a days since people have already started posting hate mail on Ashley Todd’s Twitter (censored):

eitan: @atodd even MICHELLE MALKIN thinks you’re a f***ing liar and a racist fraud. nice job.

Also let me explain why Ashley Todd’s Twitter, or at least what we refer to as her twitter (its actually her profile on “life in the field” a site for College Republican volunteers), seems “odd”. The posts we are seeing on her site are not normal twitter status updates but instead they are posts in a specific discussion. That’s why they don’t seem to make sense as updates… because they aren’t updates most of them are responses to questions in a discussion with other College Republican reps.

UPDATE: More information including the fact that Ashley Todd has volunteered to take a polygraph test…

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Stephen Gutowski

Stephen Gutowski is an award-winning political reporter who got his start in 2009 when he founded this blog.

48 thoughts on “Horrifying attack on McCain supporter in Pittsburgh; Update: Daily Kos has no sympathy, neither do conservatives?”

  1. Knowing Pittsburgh and how bad it can be I believe the girl. I also realize that Obama told his supporters to “get in their faces” so this is very possible. I will come out and expose this if it’s fake but in the mean time I’m going to show my support for the poor girl. Better than calling her a liar and then being wrong.

  2. I think what Michelle Malkin finds odd about her Twitter is how it seems to follow a sort of “set up” to the mugging…”hey guys, i’m looking for an atm….” Followed by “wow, i think i’m the wrong part of town…” Then BAM, she’s robbed. It is kind of weird. Here’s something else I can’t seem to find any clarification on…was she scratched with a fingernail or knife? I seem to recall the initial story said knife…that”B” does NOT look like it was made from a knife, sorry. Lastly, the time lime….robbed at 8:50pm – doesn’t report it to police until 40 minutes later at 9:30? was she being beaten for 40 minutes straight? her wounds don’t suggest it. I hope I’m wrong, but this doesn’t pass the smell test. And yes, I’m a McCain supporter.

  3. Patrick: So, basically you’re saying that this is somehow the Obama campaign’s fault for saying “get in their faces”? How do you exactly make that leap?

    There are discrepancies with the facts. The fact that the “B” is backwards notwithstanding, it seems very neat for a violent crime. Also, not exactly a sharp knife, was it? Why is there no swelling on the eye? Every other black eye I’ve seen swelled.
    The times on her Twitter posts don’t make sense. They were posted after midnight, but the attack is supposed to have occurred at 9pm.

    Violence against anyone is a terrible, awful thing. But I don’t find it that hard to believe that someone would do something of this nature for whatever kind of attention. As much as I never thought I would say it, I actually agree with some of the points that Michelle Malkin made. Is Ashley a liar? No, because there’s no evidence of that. Did the mugging occur? Maybe, evidence is being gathered. Was it “politically motivated”? No, because there’s no evidence of that, either.

    It’s just as wrong to say assume the attacker was a “Obama supporter” just because she says he became “enraged” at the sight of the McCain sticker, as it is to say that she’s lying. Let’s let the police do their jobs and find out what really happened.

  4. Typically, if the “carving” is generally even in depth, as this one appears to be, the injury is self-inflicted. There are lots of precedents for this, unfortunately. If someone is cutting a victim, the victim would struggle. That makes it quite difficult for anyone to make a relatively even (in depth) carving into the skin. The Tawana Brawley case is a classic example of this type of scenario. The relatively even depth of the cuts in her skin gave her away. I’m a McCain supporter, btw, and a former prosecutor.

  5. It does look very horrible, and is a good reminder that we should all calm down on all sides because people can get hurt by anger – but the police themselves have serious doubts.

    It’s wicked to fake a hate crime, just as it is wicked to commit one. In both cases, the intent is to whip up a storm, frighen and anger people.

    Let’s all take a deep breath – and think where all this rage could lead us all. It’s not ‘depraved’ to question the story, it’s normal – the police are not very convinced.

    http://www.tmz.com/

    ‘Pittsburgh law enforcement sources tell TMZ they have serious questions about the authenticity of the alleged victim who says she had her face cut by a politically-motivated attacker.

    We’re told there are several things about the alleged attack that don’t add up. A Pittsburgh PD official says they are conducting a “thorough investigation” and have not determined if the alleged attack is real or a hoax. But we’re told there is definitely a level of skepticism.

    As we reported, the alleged victim claims she went to an ATM and when she turned around, a large dark-skinned man took the money she withdrew. She says when he noticed she had a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on her car, he became enraged, knocked her down and cut a “B” in her face.

    We’re told the woman refused medical assistance at the scene and said she would go to the hospital the next day.

    The investigation continues.’

  6. Yes, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt in playing to the desperate race mongering fantasies of the right on the eve of an election. Give me a break, this story, and the breathless DrudgeFox coverage of it, is an absolute disgrace. Her picture doesn’t pass the laugh test. Will the proof that you are wrong cause you to finally rethink your own credibility on any issue?

  7. People can be very eccentric and if you remember the story about the Obama supporter who smacked that little McCain protester around with her own sign you get the idea that some people are also violent. Obama telling his supporters to get in their faces may be a coincidence but it is interesting that they are doing more than getting in our faces.

    Also, the backwards B thing. The fact that it is backwards can be explained by the fact that he might have done it while she was on the ground or with her in a headlock. Don’t you think if she created this hoax she might have used an O or took the time to get the B right? I like how people are jumping to conclusions but refuse to jump the other way.

    “Yeah she’s crazy! She’s a liar! No way that someone would ever attack and cut someone. No sir.”

    Whatever the case people are not giving her a fair shot.

  8. “According to the Pittsburgh police, Shortly before 9 p.m. October 22nd a woman was robbed at knife point while making a transaction at an ATM in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania”

    Why don’t you take a few seconds to report accurately..
    It wasn’t the police that broke the story. It was Ashley herself who broke it after refusing police and medical attention. The highly conservative Philly Police will be performing a polygraph on her.

  9. I hate being such a sceptic but there have too many fake hate crime hoaxes recently and there are just too many odd things about this scenario for me to just beleive it right away. Michelle Malkin has a tendency to be right on her blog and she has some serious doubts about this case and so do I.

    My main reasons for being sceptical are
    1. Why is the B so perfectly formed..if someone is being held down and carved into they are instinctively resist and move around, not exactly an ideal canvas to etch a letter into.

    2. Why didnt she go to the hospital right after?

    3. How did the guy notice a bumper sticker on a car at 9 o’clock at night. Criminals arent completely fearless,,, if it was a mugging he would have gotten the money and ran off usually. Hardly a good situation for looking out for bumper stickers.

    4. The B seems to be barely cut into her skin. More like scratched superficially. I doubt an angry rushed criminal would take so much care while mutilating someone…

    This whole report sounds like a hoax to me and i really hate to doubt a young woman who was probably the victim of a crime but things just dont add up. I do think she may have been mugged but I beleived that the B is a hoax

  10. Patrick:

    > Also, the backwards B thing. The fact that it is backwards can be explained by the fact that he might have done it while she was on the ground or with her in a headlock.

    One of the Pittsburgh news reports specified that the victim said the attacker sat on her chest. That said, the report could be wrong or the photo reversed, but getting closer to the “B” *actually* being backwards.

    I’m anxious to her the official report.

  11. I don’t know about the rest of the story, but that’s not a real shiner.

    1st of all, it’s the wrong color. Black Eyes are actually red/purple.

    2nd. Her Eye’s not swollen. That’s the primary thing wiht a black eye really.

    3rd. It’s too regular. Most black eyes have sharp corners and defined edges.

    Search google images for black eyes, and see for yourself.

    It’s eyeshadow…

  12. She’s a Liar!!!
    If the man used a knife on her face, she should have gotten a shot to prevent infection form the dirty knife.
    Where is the deep cut on her face. If anyone ever got a cut, even a paper cut, the WOUNDS ARE DEEP.
    She did this to herself, in a mirror, using a pencil eraser to burn her skin.

  13. Let me get this straight…I’m a mugger, I rob you (in what I found out later is one of the whitest parts of Pittsburgh at 9 pm)..I am a black male, I look at yuour car and say “Oh snap..This biznitch be havin a McCain bumper sticker I’mo havta whoop dat ass” So I stay in this white area to make a political point instead of fleeing..risking incarceration? Chappelle couldn’t have come up with something that good.
    http://aquabonics.blogspot.com/

  14. I’m a Pittsburgh native, and worked for the now-defunct Pittsburgh Press as a reporter back in the 1980s. I’ve read plenty of police reports and trial transcripts of witness testimony in my day, and this story doesn’t pass the smell test. Here’s why?

    1. Since she was Twittering from her cell phone just prior to the attack, why didn’t she call 911 after it happened? That’s the first thing most victims with a cell phone would think of doing. Instead, she waited 45 minutes, which conveniently prevented police from searching the neighborhood for her attacker.

    2. She claims that the robber moved away from her, then came back to attack her after he saw her bumper stickers. Why didn’t she run away?

    3. The 6′ 4″ attacker supposedly hit her in the back of the head and then pushed her down to the ground , presumably with one hand since he was holding a five-inch knife in the other, and then knelt over her over to carve the B. Does that make any sense to you? An attacker with that extreme of a size differential would have lifted her up and pushed her against a wall. Much more convenient. And no halfway streetwise mugger is going to get down on his knees, which would make it difficult for him to flee if the 5-0s unexpectedly roll up.

    4. Why is the B backward? And why is the wound a neat looking, relatively mild abrasion? Imagine a guy holding down a squirming victim and trying to carve a B with a five inch knife. He would have ripped her face apart. The B looks as if it was made with the corner of a razor blade, by somebody looking in a mirror.

    5. I haven’t lived in Pittsburgh for 20 years, but as I remember it, Bloomfield was a white working-class Italian neighborhood, the sort of place where a 6’4″ African-American mugger on foot and carrying a big knife would be a bit, ah, conspicuous. And what was she doing stopping at an ATM there in the first place? Well-lit, ritzy Walnut Street in Shadyside–the sort of place where a young Republican would be thoroughly comfortable–is a couple of minutes away.

    6. Liberty Avenue, as I remember it, is pretty well lit and at that time of night, there are plenty of people on the sidewalks, going in and out of the numerous bars and restaurants in the area. Also there are houses in the alleys and side streets. And there’s plenty of vehicular traffic. Yet oddly, nobody at all apparently witnesseed the attack.

    Anyway, you can believe what you want, but this is going to turn out to be a hoax. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

  15. What all of you blind followers failed to see in the multiple updates of this story, is that the police want to administer a polygraph because the alleged victim, is changing specific details of her story. In addition, the police say the evidence at the scene and from bank surveillance cameras (not ATM camera), does not support her story that there was an attack.

    There have also been law-enforcement officers that say the “B” is too, neat, superficial and shallow to support the type of attack and knife mutilation she claims. As for you ignorant people that want to claim the attacker somehow sat on her head,…ah backwards,…think about it,…how could the attacker carve a “B” into her cheek, so neatly and so shallow? Her face would have been in his crotch. AND, if it was upside down, what would he have held down the legs and torso from flailing about? Simple to dispel really. Just take your “significant other”, and sit on his/her head. Now, with a pen, see if you can draw a “I” (for ignorant) on his/her cheek, while they are struggling.

    Oh, wait a minute…..this just in….when asked by the police, the alleged victim said the attacker sat on her chest and pinned her arms down with his knees, so that throws the acrobatic wresting move out the window.

    As for you people that don’t believe people would harm themselves for attention or their own agenda, you really are majorly UN-informed! People do much worse than the superficial wounds this girl allegedly received. People have been know to stab and shoot themselves to make the story believable. I for one, believe this woman’s black eye and cut on the face, which is not a cut so much as it is a scratch. Kind of like the cut a Hero would have received from a “fake” would-be attacker. I for one believe her wounds would be more severe if she were in such an attack being punched and kicked as she claims.

    Kudos to the police, for doing their due diligence and not just taking her word at face value. Shame on the news channel that ran with the story as fact, before checking all the facts. The bank’s surveillance camera says it all. The girl is a LIAR!

  16. Ok, I’m a rape survivor and a woman so you could rightly suspect I would view female assault with a more compassionate set of filters. And I do.

    But I am also a skeptic and I don’t simply take something on someone’s word without proof and facts. What everyone has said regarding inconsistencies is true. While I appreciate the blogger having compassion for an assault victim (regardless of gender), and I am certainly not one to blame the victim, this story quite simply does not add up. Everyone who has posted before me has already given reasons why. Further, having something violently carved into one’s skin is cause for serious medical attention, and she did not receive it? Why? Probably because she’s faking it.

    I suspect she simply wanted her 15 minutes and she received it.

  17. Total liar, total fraud. Just wait, the police will charge HER soon enough for filing a false report. Too many things here don’t add up.

    I know you McCain supporters are really upset lately, knowing that your grandpa is going to lose this election, badly, but please people. Keep it sane and rational.

  18. I have to agree with Rory on the Black eye thing. It is eye shadow. Having had a few black eyes in my day, anytime your eye (or nose) is hit hard enough to blacken the eyes, un-mistakable swelling also occurs. She has no swelling other than bags under eyes from lack of sleep due to working the campaign trail.

  19. I don’t believe her story. And the Pittsburgh police obviously don’t, either. Now her bank records don’t match up with her story, along with all the other inconsistencies and oddities.

    And don’t run down Pittsburgh, Patrick. It happens to be a great city, with a relatively low crime rate for its size. You sound like a suburban elitist when you say stuff like that.

  20. Stop acting like a bunch of Democrats! Seriously, maybe you are one and don’t care but you’re treating her worse than they did Joe the plumber. What if she was raped? Would we be knocking down her door, invading her privacy and asking if she is faking it? Let the polygraph go through and then throw eggs at her when the results are negative.

  21. This news story aside for a minute. Funny how an attack on anyone (especially on a white woman) by a black man, is viewed by the media and America, as a travesty, and “what is this country coming to”? “BRING OUT THE HOUNDS”!

    But, an attack by a white man on anybody is viewed as just an attack with no real outrage by the public.

  22. To be fair, these comments were also found on dkos.

    –I have much compassion for this woman, whether it’s because she was attacked, or because she is so misguided as to have done this to herself. Either way, she deserves some compassion.

    –Again, far be it for me to denigrade the horrible experiences of a crime victim.

    –Whatever happened to this girl, it does us no good to do other than offer our sympathy and hope that the assailant is caught.

    –But I think the netroots should chill till we find out for sure (that it is a hoax) and then we should attack FAUX news and DRUDGE not the “victim” bc either way she is a victim.

    just sayin’.
    A mirror image of a B is identical to a B upside down.

  23. Patrick Britton, the police have said she has now added and changed details of her story after several interviews. She first claimed the attacker saw a McCain bumper sticker, then changed it to a McCain pin she had on her shirt. She then added that she was sexually assaulted when interviewed again. She said, “the attacker put his hand up her shirt and fondled her breasts.” At least that is what the police updated reports are saying. Additionally, the police are now saying, the bank surveillance cameras do not support her claim that their was an attack.

    I am not saying this, the police that are investigating her accusations are.

  24. Sorry guys, but if you want to know why bleeding heart liberals are so unsympathetic, it’s quite simply this: Y’all have cried wolf so many times that you simply have NO credibility left.

    It isn’t as if you guys haven’t made false claims right before elections a standard practice. Excuse us for noticing, but, geez, Rove, Atwater, et al, have been doing this kind of crap since before Disco.

    Meanwhile, the only people who actually have been murdered in this campaign have been an Obama campaign worker who was shot by a nut-job right-winger, and those poor people who made the mistake of going to a Unitarian Church where a riled up by Limbaugh/O’Reilly/Hannity listening whack-job took a rifle and shot him some o’ them damn Amurica hating libruls.

    Yesterday one of your GOP Congresspeople declared that liberals hate real, hard-working Americans. Another said this week that Obama is anti-America. And some dear sweet GOP woman in New Mexico has proven her amazing ignorance by declaring this week that Obama is a Muslim and all Muslims are our enemies and we must fight them to the death. This invites more violence by right-wing nut jobs with way too many assault weapens

    And you want us to get upset by what looks to be another chapter in this tired old GOP playbook – fake charges by a white woman against a big black man, (do white women get attacked by any other kind of human in GOPland?). The victim has what looks like self-inflicted scratches, claims to have been attacked, beaten, kicked, punched, knocked unconscious, cut with a knife, and, last, but hardly least, sexually assaulted by this large black man, but she refused medical attention of any kind? Sorry, I ain’t buyin’ it, and apparently the police have doubts too.

    My sympathy doesn’t get trotted out for show so conservatives can have less to dislike me for. My sympathy is there for victims of real tragedies, no matter what the victim’s political views are.

    I do feel bad for anyone so screwed up that they would think perpetrating a hoax like this is a good idea, because, #1, she’s let herself in for some real grief with the police, because they really do not like being played with like that and it is illegal, so she could end up doing time or having a criminal record, and #2, if she did fake this, for whatever reason, she is one truly screwed up person, with some very questionable ethics and morals, and she will fill her life with the miserable consequences of the choices she makes based on those morals and ethics. Her life will be a stroll down Jerry Springer Lane. The problem is, people like that don’t wallow alone, they take other people down with them.

    So, no, no sympathy from this liberal.

  25. See, I told ya.

    http://kdka.com/local/attack.McCain.Bloomfield.2.847628.html

    PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter “B” in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

    Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

    Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

    Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

    Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and “the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction.”

    This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

    The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

    According to police, investigators working on the interview process detected several inconsistencies in Todd’s story that differed from statements made in the original police report.

    Pittsburgh Police Public Information Officer Diane Richard released a statement earlier today, saying: “Because of the inconsistencies in her statements, Ms. Todd was asked to submit to a polygraph examination which she agreed to do.”

    No photos of Todd are being released by Pittsburgh Police at this time.

    The investigation is continuing as officials determine what charges will be filed.

  26. harriet Says:

    October 23rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
    It does look very horrible, and is a good reminder that we should all calm down on all sides because people can get hurt by anger – but the police themselves have serious doubts.

    It’s wicked to fake a hate crime, just as it is wicked to commit one. In both cases, the intent is to whip up a storm, frighen and anger people.

    Let’s all take a deep breath – and think where all this rage could lead us all. It’s not ‘depraved’ to question the story, it’s normal – the police are not very convinced.

    Harriet – beautifully said!! And that’s praise from the far left! None of us want to wake up and find that inflammatory rhetoric has caused harm, and we’ve been walking too close to that line lately. Deep breaths, everyone, we have a good system, let’s have some faith in others, even those we disagree with, and let it work.
    I applaud your thoughtfulness.

  27. No way. As a female who lives near the area, I say, NO WAY. The location she claims this happened is a lively area with many restaurants and bars. At 9PM – someone would have seen this. Pearl and Liberty in Bloomfield is not “the wrong side of town” – it’s a charming old “Italian” neighborhood, which has experienced some pretty significant rejuvenation in the last 10 years. 2 of our favorite dining establishments are in that very block. The one – a steakhouse – Tessaro’s is a Pittsburgh legend (with by the way, a mostly “white” clientele – I only add that after reading the description of her supposed attacker to note that it is an area much inhabited by all) and the streets around this area are generally busy until later at night. No way this happened at this location without anyone seeing it.

  28. I cannot believe you ran with this garbage in the first place. The fact that your initial instinct was to believe this girl shows you have poor judgment. It also shows you’d make a horrible detective and horrible journalist. You should post an apology. Your stoking of partisanship hatred is without honor.

  29. Some people had critical thinking skills rather than sympathy. Funny that the headlines today are so much tinier than the originals…I can barely see this one OR Drudge’s.

  30. This hoax exposes a serious flaw in the new right-wing media: the fanatic zeal to pounce quickly on any story that makes the Left look bad, combined with a lack of journalism skills that stress objectivity and a healthy dose of skepticism.

    Even though Malkin is no longer an objective journalist, her journalism background and years of experience enabled her to smell a rat quickly.

    An MSM newspaper or TV reporter expressing knee-jerk outrage about this fish tale would likely be fired. But since bloggers won’t fire themselves for falling for such an obvious hoax, these types of stories will continue to make the rounds on the Net.

    Drudge posted an inflammatory, misleading lead headline yesterday for a story that turned out to be a hoax. Will he fire anyone? Doubtful.

  31. “Yup, that’s right, she’s a lying racist who wants to incite race riots by cutting her own face in order to get John McCain elected president.”

    Well, it turns out that’s exactly what she is, the Daily Kos people were right, and you were a gullible fool who swallowed a story with holes in it you could drive a truck through. You’re probably the type of person who would believe that George Bush is “conservative”!

  32. Yeppers you guys kind of screwed the pooch on this one didn’tcha?

    Pardon me while I set myself back a step and take a good hard belly laugh.

    Har har har har har!

    I’ve done it myself — but it sure is fun to watch it happen to you.

  33. To all of those people who believed this story and said that those who doubted it were insensitive, screaming racism or the like…You must feel as dumb as this mentally challenged girl who did this to her self. Come on…I was born at night but not LAST NIGHT. Any one who refuses a medical exam after reporting an attack confirms a lack of credibility. I bet Barry Goldwater is turning over in his grave right now. Stupidty and ignorance were not the original intent of the conservative movement. The right wingers in this country are just embarrassing! The only thing that they are good at is being corrupt! It would be better if they left the country so that we could have a literacy rate that is higher than 49%

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