The emotionally-troubled girl at the epicenter of one of campaign 2008's most dramatic segments has been given probation for her false report of an enraged Obama supporter carving a letter into her face.
From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Allegheny County Judge Robert Gallo gave Ashley Todd, of Texas, nine months of probation and ordered her to do 50 hours of community service in the next six months. She also must pay court costs.
Ms. Todd was a campaign volunteer for John McCain and working in Pittsburgh when she claimed an Obama supporter mugged her in October. She said a 6-foot-4 black man became enraged at the McCain bumper sticker on her car and carved a "B" into her cheek.
Police doubted her story and she soon admitted making the mark herself.
Tony Norman, in the paper's editorial pages, described the initial reaction to the manufactured story with succinct aplomb:
The next afternoon, as the story broke on local TV, Drudge Report blared the news globally with a bright red headline: "Shock: McCain Volunteer Attacked and Mutilated in Pittsburgh." The photo of her bruised face set the right-wing blogosphere aflame. It was clear to even the dullest wit in conservative talk radio's vast echo chamber that the first skirmish in the long-feared race war ignited by Obama's presidential candidacy had begun. Ashley Todd, the belle of College Station, was its first "victim."
John McCain and Sarah Palin called with words of support. The Obama campaign issued a statement calling for the swift arrest of her assailant.
Meanwhile, people with common sense rolled their eyes and gritted their teeth through hours of credulous media coverage. You didn't have to be an Obama supporter to know antebellum fantasy and retrograde racist kitsch when you heard it. It smelled just like Willie Horton. Still, propriety insisted on a proper police interrogation and investigation before Ms. Todd's ridiculous story was blown out of the water by Friday.
According to published reports, Todd had previously hooked up with a group of Ron Paul supporters in Texas, but was kicked out after she faked an attack on her car and posed as a Huckabee supporter.
If you don't mind, I'm going to pull out my lecturer's cap for a moment.
When this story broke, we did not cover it. It was a conscious decision to wait for confirmation, because something was just missing from this girl's story. While Drudge Report screamed it from the rooftops in huge red text and blogs across the Web had a collective blamegasm, we and many other responsible journalists smelled a rat.
And what a stinker it was.
Something not so dissimilar happened earlier this week, when otherwise respectable publications carried disinformation from the blogosphere on comments allegedly made by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. After a completely manufactured report out of Pakistan claimed Sy had told an Arab journalist former Vice President Cheney had ordered the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the resulting info-frenzy even landed on The Wall Street Journal's Web site.
When something seemingly sensational jumps on one end of the Web, there will always be some outlets that do not wait for confirmation. In the Ashley Todd case, conservative sympathies in the heat of a campaign fueled an intensely false and ugly confrontation born out of a very troubled young woman. In the Hersh case, journalists and bloggers who thrive on controversy to generate traffic were on a 'me-too' train to get the latest and greatest from one of the best investigative reporters in the business, even if the exact quote of him making such outlandish claims was nowhere to be found.
The lesson inherent to both is one of journalism's most basic: trust your source, verify the facts, or don't run the story at all.
And of course, the lesson for you is a mere measure of skepticism. Questioning is healthy. Do it for everything.
-- Stephen C. Webster
too funny. i forgot about this girl. How is the American Terrorist John Lindh doing? did they water board him??
Did no one even notice that the B on her cheek was backwards? You know, the way someone might form the letter while looking in a mirror?
Dumb broad. I hope they tie her tubes so she can't reproduce.
Yes, Dave, we all noticed a long time ago.
Get caught with some dope in a poor neighborhood and you might get a few years in prison.. Falsify police reports, waste 10s of thousands of taxpayer dollars, hint at a hate crime, and try to derail a presidential bid, get probation.
gotta love 'Merica.
jeez, after attempting to get every black man in her town lynched they only gave her 50 effing hours? she deserves worse, like 1000+ hours doing community service in minority communities wearing a sign that says "I'm the one that put a backwards B on my face and said a black guy did it while raping me"
This womans behavior is so typical of Conservative Ideology. They stop at nothing including Bankrupting the USA into a third world nation.
Just one more for the GIPPER
Morning in America
The picture is being displayed upside down. I guess that's intentional and not an error and it's upside down to emphasize that the 'B' is backwards. She's kind of cute upside down, perhaps she should be kept that way for a while. Might do her some good.
Is it me or did this last election bring out more crazy republiKKKons than ever? From the backward B girl to the handyman that claimed to be a plumber who would be getting a tax cut under Obama and not under McCain to the knocked up, unmarried celebrity, (Cyrstal as in meth) daughter of the republiKKKon (air headed beauty queen with telescopic vision) vice president candidate, claiming celebacy is the only way to go to avoid ending up like her. And on and on and on they spin......
Yes, Savantster, it truly is a stange 'Merica we live in.
"50 hours of community service", jerking off her pastor.
Tiel, it ain't the conservatives who want to give away the farm.
Who blacked her eye?
What does Ashley Todd desire most and fear most?
When Ashley Tood and other Repukelikkkans look at the new President what do they daydream about?
Who would Ashley Todd like to spend her time with in jail?
No one gave her a black eye, that's make-up.
I don't think we've heard the end of Ashley by any measure.
Minner: she did that with makeup. Conservative values, etc.
Why are some of these comments linked to porn sites? So much for RS's thorough vetting of comments.
Jackie, stop being such a prude. If you don't want to see the porno stuff, don't look at it. You're an adult, I assume.