Today's ‘Freak Show’ News

Mccain campaign PUSHED this story and that is a FACT....His PA Campaign called numerous reporters and pushed the story, all again to try to push race issues....The McCain campaign has icited HATE, RACEISN, FEAR and it's disgusting.

McCain has become a dishonorable man and will go down in history that way...He is too old to change his reputation. He sold his sole to the devil and that is how he will be remembered

Ashley Todd says-"I see 6ft4 Black Men"

media says- "I see a lying crazy girl with a fake black eye"

JT -

Thanks for making the Morton Downey Jr. Connection; that's all I could compare it to!

This is not the first time a false claim against a black man has been made and sure not be the last,it is a shame that this girl is so desperate for attention from the McCain camp that she prepetrated such a despicable act.She must have been tired of hearing about Joe that she decided to take matters in to her own hands to change the message from McCain and Palin,but this the lowest and hopefully the McCain camp had nothing to do with this.If it is they are dirtier than I thought.This is not a hoax this is still trying to make Obama supporters look like they are terrorist like they try to portray Obama.We don't stoop so low.I'm glad she has been arrested.

Ah, ignorance and stupidity are still essential elements of American politics, I see!

Jake, PLEASE take some time to look BEHIND the Ashley Todd story. There is politics behind it: GOP politics. Racist politics. Whu doesn't that bother you?! I'm sure it bothers millions in this country.

Here's for instance what Greg Sargent (TalkingPointsMemo) ALREADY found out:

John McCain's Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established -- and even told reporters outright that the "B" carved into the victim's cheek stood for "Barack," according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.

The KDKA reporter had called McCain's campaign office for details after seeing the story -- sans details -- teased on Drudge.

The McCain spokesperson's claims -- which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world -- is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.

The claims to KDKA from the McCain campaign were included in an early story that ran late yesterday on KDKA's Web site. The paragraphs containing these assertions were quickly removed from the story after the Obama campaign privately complained that KDKA was letting the McCain campaign spin a racially-charged version of the story before the facts had been established, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

The story with the removed grafs is still right here. We preserved the three missing grafs from yesterday: (see the TalkingPointsMemo site)

A source familiar with what happened yesterday confirmed that the unnamed spokesperson was communications director Peter Feldman. Feldman was also quoted yesterday making virtually identical assertions on the Web site of another local TV station, WPXI. But those quotes, which we also preserved here, are also no longer available on WPXI's site, for reasons that are unclear.

This is problematic because the McCain campaign doesn't want to have been perceived as pushing an incendiary story that not only turned out to be a hoax but which police officials said today risked blowing up into a "national incident" and has local police preparing to file charges against the hoaxster.

There's no evidence that anyone from McCain national headquarters put out a version of events like this.

After the story appeared on KDKA's site and this and other pieces in the local press started flying around the political world, an Obama spokesperson in the state angrily insisted to KDKA that it was irresponsible for the station to air the McCain spokesperson's incendiary version of events before the facts were fully known, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

After that, KDKA went back to McCain's Pennsylvania spokesperson, Feldman, and asked if he stood by the story as he'd earlier told it, but he started backing off the story, a source familiar with the talks says. That prompted KDKA to remove the grafs.

Feldman couldn't immediately be reached, and a McCain HQ spokesperson declined to comment.

Wow, who could have seen THAT one coming?"

Drudge, Right wing blogs & FoxNews apparently.

Even the ones who were skeptical made sure the story got play.

Posted by: Ryan C (the actual real one) | Oct 24, 2008 3:17:08 PM

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She told that lie because the one about a black man attacking a white woman and driving her car with three kids in a lake to drown had already been used years ago.

Jill - I have to admit, Eskew will do absolutely anything to win. Anything. Before Lee Atwater died of a brain tumor, he spent the last months of his life trying to make amends to all the people he had lied about or harmed. Couldn't do it. There were too many. Eskew? How do you make amends to an entire country? The man is sewage. How could McCain have hired him? What happened to that man?

john,

"Ans let's not forget: presidential candidate John McCain PERSONALLY called the hoax-merchant, the racist freak herself. Again, WHY exactly? The police had only just begun to investigate the girl's incredible and weird story."

McCain is out of money and needed the free media coverage and all his "important" hate-based calls are reported on. McCain's camp still lives in a pre-Internet world where they rely on stardome and drama instead of news, information or reality.

Obama/Biden 08!

Jake, there's MUCH more to the Ashley Todd story of course than that it would be "freak show news". Of course the girl is a freak, but both McCain and Palin have been on the line with that freak. WHY? There's were we expect journalists to come up with answers.

Please note that John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a DETAILED VERSION of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

Verrilli also told TPM that is the McCain spokesperson who had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack.

So, ths is not simply about some very freaky girl, this is about desperate campaign tactics in the final hours. The same McCain Communications Director gave the story to Drudge where it was posted earlier than anywhere else on the web.

So the McCain campaign was recklessly playing with fire... very dangerous fire. It was all about race-baiting, racism, tying African Americans to crime, cruelty and violence, and above that: tying all that to that B of Barack Obama.

Ans let's not forget: presidential candidate John McCain PERSONALLY called the hoax-merchant, the racist freak herself. Again, WHY exactly? The police had only just begun to investigate the girl's incredible and weird story.

Is McCain's call the kind of judgment you want in a president?

A dupe squad would be one that expects the American citizens to accept the 'confusion' that might pervade their minds, having been caused by the reaction of their President to some unspecified 'international crises.'

Oh, you silver tongued rogue, Biden. zerO really knows how to pick them.

Hopefully, not coming soon to a theater in your neighborhood. But, that would sell ACORN's fine work short.

I heard about this latest effort by the "dupe squad" (McCain/Palin/GOP), and I was beyond sickened. Why all the tricks scared GOP folks?

Obama/Biden 08!

I do not like the term "freak show", but I do use the term "rogues' gallery" as in:

Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Frank, Schumer, Brazille, Dean, Powell, ....

Ayers, Dohrn, Farrakhan, Wright, Pfleger, Caldwell, McClurken, Daley, Lippert, ...

Rezko, Blagojevich, Auchi, Johnson, Raines, Pritzker, Groelich, Axelrod, Gibbs, Dunn, (Susan)Rice, ....

Jake, MSNBC reported that the McCain communications director in PA was the one who pimped the Ashley Todd story to Drudge.

Such actions deserve critical attention, if you ask me. From (political) journalists, in particular.

It means that the McCain campaign has tried to make a big scandal out of this; plus it explains why the racist lunatic Todd in no time was on the phone with both McCain and Palin.

Mara, I can well imagine the highest levels of the campaign -- as in Eskew -- being involved.

McCain AND Palin personally called the hate crime hoaxer? Just before she confessed?

I was thinking their ticket resembled something from a Christopher Guest movie.

Now I'm thinking John Waters.

I'd hate to think what's beyond that threshold.

Donald: My guess would be that Jake ran the story as if were a little joke for the same reason that he has been running John McCain commercials free of charge all week.

The McCain statement on "spreading the wealth" (as a good thing) has been out all week too. Don't know why it hit this page five days later.

Mara: "... but I do not believe that John McCain would ever have approved of the hoax. Ever. He has sunk into gutter politics - but I just can't believe that he would ever do something so squalid - or so stupid."

Of course not, dear. That's what dimwitted underlings are for.

Already Voted - The horrible hoax definitely came from the McCain regional campaign director - but I do not believe that John McCain would ever have approved of the hoax. Ever. He has sunk into gutter politics - but I just can't believe that he would ever do something so squalid - or so stupid.

Jake, the Pittsburgh hoax is by far the more important story here, if only for the simple fact that the McCain campaign trumpeted the fake event for the world to see, hoping to stir up a racial firestorm.

Yet for some obscure reason, you decide to lead your post with a minor non-story about another one of John Kerry's stupid attempts at humor that nobody with any lick of sense is paying any attention to.

Why?