More details from the Republican crime victim who wasn’t:
Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department’s investigations division, said Todd is being charged with making a false police report.
Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.
“She just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth,” Bryant said, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “She was upset with the media for blowing this into a political firestorm.” …
<snip>
On Friday, when she admitted the story was fabricated, Todd told police she believes she cut the backward “B” onto her own cheek, but she didn’t explain how or why, Bryant said.
“She said she doesn’t remember doing it but knows it must have been her who did it,” Bryant said, according to the Tribune-Review.
Todd reportedly said she thought of Barack Obama when she saw the “B” on her cheek and minutes later “came up what a plan” to manufacture the story, according to Bryant.
She now tells investigators she was neither robbed nor attacked.
As per the “media blowing this into a political firestorm” - again, it was primarily Drudge, though other right-wing bloggers leapt onto the bandwagon with full force. Sullivan rounds up some of the responses.
Worth remembering that both McCain and Palin personally called this woman to express their condolences. Many on the right saw this as a chance to derail the existing narrative (crazed right-wingers) and create a new one (crazed dark-skinned negro criminal Obama supporters). They desperately wanted this. They didn’t get it.
Said the president of College Republicans in Pittsburgh:
“It’s a disgusting act of violence,” said Graham, “almost like a hate crime, because she was basically attacked because solely because of her political belief, and no other reason.”
Way to go, Sparky.
Worth noting as well, something a Fox News Executive VP wrote about all this yesterday:
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.
How in the world do allegations about a mugging in Pittsburgh suddenly lead voters to conclude that “they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee?”
Because Obama’s black and here’s proof that blacks are criminals?
Ah, but the Fox VP goes on:
If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.
Dunno if it’s fair to accuse the campaign itself of race-baiting. But some of the surrogates? Yeppers.
