I didn’t want to blog about this business because it seemed like a hoax but it would be unseemly to accuse a victim of perpetrating a hoax just based on general intuition. But for the record, Ashley Todd has admitted she was lying about the idea that a black man mugged her, sexually assaulted her, and scratched a “B” into her cheek because she had a McCain bumper sticker on her car. Matt Corley observes that before the hoax was exposed, Fox News Executive VP John Moody, a Pittsburgh native, had some provocative thoughts on the matter:
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.
Of course the McCain campaign could have done the smart thing and stayed circumspect about this until all the facts were in. But instead they decided to try and exploit it.