Ashley Todd

Ponster

I'm sure most of you know about this story. Pittsburgh - 20 year-old white female Republican campaign worker is attacked by a 6'4" black man who beat her, kicked her and cut a B into her cheek. The attacker saw her McCain sticker on her car leading to the assault.

When I first heard it and saw the images on the 'net I thought the story was a little suspect due to the B being reversed on her cheek





After a lot of media attention and phone calls from both Palin and McCAin offering support to the young girl it now turns out that not only did the girl make the up the whole bloody thing but a McCain Communications Director was the one that claimed that the attacked said

"You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

and even told reporters outright that the "B" carved into the victim's cheek stood for "Barack,".

In fact the entire story that was being reported was information from the McCain as the police at this stage hadn't even spoken to the girl.


I feel sorry for Ashley Todd. She clearly has some problems but for me, a very non-political person who can generally find something nice to say about almost anyone, the most baffling thing is people who can write blog comments like

She just did MAJOR damage to McCain-Palin with this little stunt. Both of them called to offer her their sympathies IMMEDIATELY after this story broke and had not been fully vetted and now they both look like FOOLS. It’s too perfect. Somebody needs to look into this girls background because I smell a set-up to manufacture an embarrassment that benefits the Obama campaign (and expect to see them milk this BIG TIME in the next week or so).

A set-up? WTF ? Like the Obama campaign needs to be generating fake stories like this!
Are there any hope for these people? I get the feeling that if Obama wins the election and if things work out well for his presidency (something that won't be easy), will these kind of people ever change their mind? What does it take for someone who believes that this event was created by the Democrats to "come around" and realise that non-republican politics != evil ?

Hobbes

Sadly the **** that some of the supporters are doing is going beyond rational.

The only stupid thing done here was for McCains people to try and push this as a media story before it was all cleared up. Nothing wrong with McCain ringing her to check out if she was OK or what the issue was.

Intresting how the woman who was working for Obama getting assaulted a little while back (doing door to door work) didn't make the main stream media. As I recall Obama rang that woman when he heard it had happened.

I see Ashley is now being charged with filing a false police report.

Trojan

Hobbes wrote: »

Intresting how the woman who was working for Obama getting assaulted a little while back (doing door to door work) didn't make the main stream media.

Agreed, very interesting - yet the Republicans claim the media is leaning Democrat.

brianthebard

Trojan wrote: »

Agreed, very interesting - yet the Republicans claim the media is leaning Democrat.

Well given the number of papers that have endorsed Obama that particular claim is not without merit.

This sort of "large black man" story though is kind of a bogey man in the US though afaik and much more likely to get covered than a "standard" assault charge. Or at least that's the impression I get-thoughts?

SteveS

Hobbes wrote: »

Sadly the **** that some of the supporters are doing is going beyond rational.

The only stupid thing done here was for McCains people to try and push this as a media story before it was all cleared up. Nothing wrong with McCain ringing her to check out if she was OK or what the issue was.

Intresting how the woman who was working for Obama getting assaulted a little while back (doing door to door work) didn't make the main stream media. As I recall Obama rang that woman when he heard it had happened.

I see Ashley is now being charged with filing a false police report.

There were doubts as to the truthfullness of the story from the beginning. An extremely skeptical person might say the 'media' knew this and was hoping it would blow up and make McCain look bad.

I believe that most of the media wants Obama to win or at least supports him in some way. Besides endorsements, polling data on the media typically shows a lean to the left.

Ponster

SteveS wrote: »

polling data on the media typically shows a lean to the left.

That sounds like you're suggesting that the 'media' fixes it's poll results to make it look like Obama is winning.

Black Swan

SteveS wrote: »

polling data on the media typically shows a lean to the left.

Most state and national polls are leaning in favour of Obama, whether they are media run or not. So you are claiming that the numerous polling companies and agencies that are teamed up with the media, or are media run, or those run by research institutions and universities (that are not designated as D or R... or party run) are partial and biased? What do you substantiate this claim upon? Do you have any specific, unbiased evidence to suggest this? Any unbiased links to support your claim, or is this just your individual opinion? If most of the polls were leaning towards McCain rather than Obama, would your claim be the same or different?

Hobbes

SteveS wrote: »

polling data on the media typically shows a lean to the left.

Back before August the media showed McCain had a lead.

SteveS

Ponster wrote: »

That sounds like you're suggesting that the 'media' fixes it's poll results to make it look like Obama is winning.

No, I am saying that when the media is polled, it shows that most of them lean to the left. Sorry for the confusion. I think that most of the major polling companies are honest, since they would certainly lose business if they were found to be dishonest.

I think this has resulted in public not trusting the media in many ways.

Trojan

SteveS wrote: »

No, I am saying that when the media is polled, it shows that most of them lean to the left. Sorry for the confusion. I think that most of the major polling companies are honest, since they would certainly lose business if they were found to be dishonest.

I think this has resulted in public not trusting the media in many ways.

I think a major source of confusion here is that what people in the USA see as left, we see as centre, or centre-right. So when you say that the media is leaning to the left, it's just not as far right as a lot of the public in the US.

I agree with you that the media are not way over on the right where the red states are, but to say that they're leaning left, from my perspective, that's 100% wrong, although I agree with you in principle.

SteveS

Trojan wrote: »

I think a major source of confusion here is that what people in the USA see as left, we see as centre, or centre-right. So when you say that the media is leaning to the left, it's just not as far right as a lot of the public in the US.

I agree with you that the media are not way over on the right where the red states are, but to say that they're leaning left, from my perspective, that's 100% wrong, although I agree with you in principle.

Yes, I agree that it depends on your perspective. I lean left on some issues and right on others, so I tend to see media bias in terms of issues rather than an overall ideology.