This is Disgraceful

The McCain supporter who claimed she was attacked by an assailant at a Pittsburgh ATM, who then became enraged by her McCain-Palin sticker and carved a “B” into her face, has admitted the incident was a hoax. Ashley Todd, a College Republicans volunteer, reported to police that she was assaulted by a 6-foot-4 black man after getting money out of an ATM Wednesday. She claimed she gave him $60 before he was set off by her McCain sticker and started beating her. The police were skeptical of her claims because there were inconsistencies in her story, and the attack had taken out of range of the ATM’s surveillance cameras. There were reports earlier today that police had given her a polygraph, but declined to release the results. Questions about her account continued to mount, as it was revealed that she only called police 45 minutes after the attack from a friend’s house and that she didn’t make any reference to her attacker’s political motivations during her first iteration of the story. Conservative bloggers, to their great credit, examined Todd’s claims with a critical eye, noting that the “B” carved into her face was backwards, suggesting she might have done it to herself, and fielding contributions from police officers who said the incident was a bit too perfect to pass the “smell test.” Todd now, unbelievably, says she’s upset with the media for having hyped the story. She has managed to well and truly hurt the very people she purported to be helping, by going from volunteer to vigilante fabricator. The College Republicans have terminated her, as they should have. Todd claims not to know where the black eye and “B” came from: