Local McCain Staffer Pushed Hyped Version Of "B-Attack" Hoax

By Cernig

You might have noticed that we hadn't posted a thing on the Ashley Todd "B for Barrack Attack" hoax that has been burning up the internet since yesterday eve. That's because, in our opinion, it wasn't a story. If it were true then it was a story about a mugger who is also a dumb-ass. There's plenty of those out there. When Todd admitted that the whole tale was a hoax, it became a story about an attention-seeking brat who never grew up. There's plenty of those too.

If you cover one, you should cover as many as possible, but this is a politics blog not a local news blog. I don't intend to denigrate the experiences of those who have been assaulted or mugged, in the least. I've had friends it has happened to, it's an awful experience when it really happens to someone...and I didn't blog about those either. Those who did were mostly dealing in faux-outrage and hyperbole.

Now, though, it's real news. TPM has the story.

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.

...A source familiar with what happened yesterday confirmed that the unnamed spokesperson was communications director Peter Feldman...

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.

Two different TV stations have removed paragraphs from their original web coverage of the story - paragraphs provided by the PA McCain campaign - as the story turned out to be not what that campaign hyped it to be.

Feldmen's actions, trying to pre-empt a police investigation with an anti-Obama narrative that tied McCain's opponent to a nasty assault, are shameful. He really must resign. And we also want to know whether McCain's local campaign staff prompted or pushed Ashley Todd in any way.

Comments

[smintheus]

It might also be worth pointing out that the willingness of so many right-wingers to believe these lurid allegations without the slightest evidence ever being provided is parallel to their pathetic desire to believe any and every allegation of "terrorism" that the Bush administration has made against people they've detained without trial - both in the US and abroad.

They don't speak generally of "alleged" terrorists or "alleged" enemy combatants at Gitmo. It's "terrorists" tout court.

Likewise, how much sympathy was there on the right for all those emigres whom the Bush administration arrested en masse after 9/11? Virtually none as I recall - and I was watching that civil-rights horror show unfold very carefully.

No, the presumption of guilt has become ingrained in the minds of George Bush's followers. The more extreme the allegation, the less evidence that today's right-wingers seem to demand, the more eager they are to join in demonizing the phantom "enemy" the moment he's pointed out.

If all Americans had demanded immediately to know where was the government's evidence against hundreds of prisoners who were purchased before being locked up at Guantanamo, these nightmare years would have been brought to an end long ago. Instead, the right-wingers ran interference for Bush by decrying anybody who called for actual evidence.