It's a cry for attention. A long time ago, when I lived in the South and the KKK was recruiting, a black activist friend of mine blew up his car and claimed the KKK did it. I asked him "How could you do that???" He said "it was to make a point".

???

Nice guy, but parts of him I just didn't understand.

FWIW/FYI: The spelling "Aaliyah" is typically used to refer to the late R&B singer, whereas the Hebrew word for moving to Israel is usually transliterated with a single leading A.

^ Yeah right?

I feel bad for her--clearly, the child has problems.

However, I had no idea the McCain campaign was pushing this story. That is BEYOND the pale.

Even if she hadn't been making this up, it simply SHOULD NOT be apolitical issue, the same way the fact that she made it up shouldn't be a political issue. Either story tells us NOTHING about the supporters of either campaign.

Whoever in the McCain campaign was pushing this story should be fired and blacklisted from political activity in the future. Anyone who would use an isolated incident like this to gin up political anger is simply a dangerous person to have in politics. They should not be allowed anywhere near a microphone or the levers of power. Period.

No disagreement with anon on the outrageous nature of pushing this story. But I doubt banning that person from future political activity is either desirable or practical. Couldn't they just blog under a name like "anon"?

In any case, the candidates have to take responsibility. If this tactic is truly intrinsic to the campaign, it is better if the candidate stays out of future politics.

Sorry, but I have nothing but contempt for Ashley Todd and those who peddled this filth (Drudge, Fox News, wingnuts).

There is nothing "sad" about Ms. Todd's case. Here is a person who hoped that her deceit would benefit McCain by inciting racial hatred of the most disgusting kind. Someone who wanted the media to jump on the story and plaster it on front pages and "breaking news" scrolls across the country. Had her ploy been a bit more sophisticated, law enforcement might have taken a much longer time to figure out the hoax. She might then have succeeded in using a horrible racist frame job to turn our entire national conversation - on the eve of the election - into an ugly shoutfest about her, the attack, deranged Obama supporters, and Obama's liability for black criminals everywhere. She wanted to create an "OJ" problem for Obama.

Atrios blogs that Todd now has the gall to complain that the media is unfairly blowing the story out of proportion. To quote John Stewart: "F*** you."

A hundred or more years ago, Ms. Todd would have been a stigmatized ecstatic like Anne Catherine Emmerich - whose fellow nuns didn't believe her and thought she was a faking sneak, btw, it was only the older male prelates who were taken in by her tales of mysteriously-appearing crosses on her breast (that looked an awful lot like minor candle burns) and raised red wedding bands on her ring finger - or claims to know what her fellow nuns were doing secretly that most certainly could NOT have been discovered by listening through keyholes...

Nothing new under the sun.

Sweet white young Republican volunteer attacked by large scary colored person, gets a "B" for effort.

Blog rant: http://tinyurl.com/4kbxdp

I can even remember when Sean Hannity pretended that Hillary Clinton said she was staying in the race in case Obama got assasinated!

Oh, wait--that was Olbermann! (The Obama campaign pimped it too.)

People do foolish things in the heat of campaigns. It's unfortunate, but it happens a lot.

sorry Bob, but Hillary really did say that -- I watched it live and it was 100% obvious to me, at that moment, that she precisely meant exactly that she was staying in the race in case Obama got murdered.

Maybe she didn't really mean it that way, but that sure as hell is what she said. And I didn't need Keith Olbermann to tell me so.

By the way Bob in case you didn't know it, Iraq and Iran are not the same country. It was Iran that was buying yellowcake in Africa, not Iraq. It seems you aren't aware that they are in fact not the same country.

You ridiculous jerk.

It's important to Ashley Todd, her friends and family that she be understood as a human being. It's important to us that she be understood as a social phenomenon. FMPV, it's faintly ridiculous to condemn her at the expense of her humanity. But, if some people must do that, as it seems you must, just don't do it at the expense of understanding what her story and the reaction to it means at a broader level. Most often, people who are mentally ill and need attention, or just evil people who want attention, know instinctively exactly how to get it. Todd clearly knew that and was quite correct. There's nothing eerie about it. Anyone who has lived in the American culture through the Presidential campaign is aware of the fact that Obama is being demonized on the basis of his race; the most familiar memes about black American men is that they're naturally violent and predisposed to assault white women, those pure, untouchable beings who sometimes represent to American manhood all that is good and innocent and worth protecting about America. What could get more attention right now than a story linking Obama, somehow, ANYhow, to a young white woman, working as a volunteer for democracy and the "great white way" who gets assaulted and injured by virtue of both her white womanhood and her connection to the campaign of the great white man and his "little white woman"? Ashley Todd chose her story well and everyone reacted just the way she knew they would. That says more about the society she lives in than it actually says about her.

McCain and those who run his campaign ought to be ashamed, but they've no need to be, really, because the people who support them understand. The only thing it's likely they're sorry about is that Todd got caught.

Why is that when white women commit crimes they are rarely held accountable for them and instead excuses are made about the state of their mental health? If this black mugger really did exist, would anybody have analyzed his mental state? Clearly you'd have to be a disturbed individual to carve a letter in someone's face over a political bumper sticker. No, he would have just been a thug, and based on what I read on many right wing blogs, much worse that I don't even want to repeat. I have yet to read anyone giving the kind of sympathy to the Duke rape girl that I am seeing for Ashley Todd. She premeditated the whole thing. She took a picture of herself to disseminate to pro-McCain political blogs. She refused medical attention and didn't call the police because her whole objective was to simply put the story out there and sit back and watch the racial sparks fly. She is nothing more than a lying b****. Sure she has issues, but who the hell doesn't? All of her actions show that she is well aware the difference between right and wrong and she chose to do the wrong thing. She's a criminal, plain and simple. Don't even get me started on Casey Anthony...