Shortly after learning of the woman in Pennsylvania claiming an Obama-supporter had carved a B into her face because of her support for John McCain, I wondered if the story were blog-worthy. Before I could make up my mind, Bruce had posted on it.
I had little reason to doubt the story, given that a local news network was reporting the story. But, when scanning the comments, I read one noting that the alleged “victim” had refused medical attention. I became skeptical, updated the blog and started searching the Internet, finding that a lot of conservative bloggers, notably Michelle Malkin, were not convinced that this young woman was telling the truth.
Finally, when it was confirmed the story was a hoax, I blogged as much.
The response from our critics was instant and intense, full of bile against McCain supporters, with one even suggesting the Arizona Senator had encouraged this. It was amazing how quick so many leftists used this to condemn conservatives when they would have jumped on a similar story had it been about an Obama supporter cut up by a McCain backer.
There are kooks on both sides of this. It’s important to note how many conservative blogs which reported it expressed skepticism and thought it deserved looking into.
But, alas, all too many of our crttics give us no respect.  And most show no respect to this blogger who started looking into it as soon as a reader raised a serious question. They see this as some kind of conspiracy rather than any attention-starved young woman eager to make a name for herself.
Why do you guys hate us so much? The “thugocracy” we fear should Obama win comes not just from angry actions, but from angry words as well.
I wonder after this election if any of us are going to look at our friends and family…all those people out on the street…the same way as we did before. The name calling, the open hatred, the violence. I don’t imagine that it’s just me that feels let down, battered, beaten and with the economy going one way then the other, just drained and weary.
I really think we’re entering a fascist era (there’s probably a more accurate word than “fascist” but I’m not inclined to look it up right now).
The Left has long been authoritarian and intolerant and more than willing to use the force of the state to get their way. The media and the schools have been brainwashing the masses for years and it’s paying off.
How else to explain the near hysterical worship of Obama? It’s like watching people speaking in tongues – it doesn’t make any sense. What, other than “hope” and “change” are they expecting? Why are they worshiping government?
Asking “why do you guys hate us so much?” is like asking the same question of Islamofascists. Most of the haters couldn’t begin to tell you why they hate. If you got an explanation, it wouldn’t make any sense to a rational person.
True liberalism (what’s left of it) resides mostly on the Right.
If Obama wins and the Dems get a super-majority in the Senate, it’s going to be rough times ahead (especially when the Obamanists figure out that their Messiah cannot deliver Heaven on Earth).
Good question, David.
I thought I had a good comment – guess the filter thought otherwise. (#325459)
“with one even suggesting the Arizona Senator had encouraged this”
His campaign did.
See the PA communications director
Oh, puh-leeze! Don’t try to play the victim here. If I may borrow a term that you wingnuts love to use… the “conservative mainstream” media, starting with that idiot Matt Drudge and on to Fox News, etc, picked up this story and ran with it from the get-go. You yourself still have your original post repeating the LIAR’S story on your blog, with your updates shunted towards the bottom, in relative obscurity.
You and your ilk are just pissed because you thought you had a juicy story that could fire up your reactionary base, and instead ended up with egg on your collective face.
I’m not playing the victim. I’m just pointing out a fact. We denounce the story. There’s not need to praise us. All you need to do is refrain form insuliting us.
One problem, Dan.
The news director at KDKA 2, the CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, is saying the McCain campaign pushed the story to them and included additional false claims that made the story more incendiary.
Earlier in the day I had given them the benefit of the doubt and said they hadn’t pushed the story. I guess I was wrong.
If that turns out to be the case, Erik, that’s very troubling. Very troubling. if it did happen, sounds like some low level operative to me, freelancing.
He says it was the McCain communications director for Pennsylvania. That’s not a low level position. Link below.
If it’s true that the line about “teaching you a lesson” originated from the McCain campaign and not the girl, that is very disconcerting. And if given significant media attention (always a big if with stories like this), will effectively end the McCain campaign.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/mccain_aide_gave_reporters_inc.php
LOL…..so what the McCain campaign did is repeat what they were told by the person perpetrating the hoax.
Also note:
There’s no evidence that anyone from McCain national headquarters put out a version of events like this.
Nice try. Caught, undone, condemned.
NDT, you’re right. But the suggestion that someone in McCain’s state campaign was involved in pushing the story is likely to dominate the news in Pittsburgh this weekend. McCain can’t win the state of Pennsylvania if he doesn’t put up a respectable showing in Allegheny County. Having this story dominate the local news 10 days before the election is not going to do anything to close that gap.
“How DARE you EVER say there’s any thugocracy here! We’re going to beat you up for saying that!!!”
It is unfortunate that the news media is discussing this instead of issues of real importance to the election; which if you’re on the right would be Democrat plans to gut the military and enact massive tax increases (per Barney Frank’s statements earlier in the week) and if you’re on the left would be more catty comments about Sarah Palin’s wardrobe.
Erik, good point in #11. Though i wouldn’t trust anything from TPM unless you can back it up with a link to another source.
Given everything I’ve read about this–and my own experience in College Republicans (CRs), I think they’re the ones who pushed the story.
Do you think the right wing media would’ve rushed to call Obama’s supporters thugs if this was a white on white crime?
Perhaps another reading of To Kill a Mockingbird is in order for all of you.
This from the same chumps who ran with the “kill him!” story, which was also featured on FOX and Drudge. Worse than that, liberals are STILL pushing that as an example of so called “Republican rage”. It was pushed by the Obama Campaign and all the good little lemmings.
As usual, liberals lie and keep pushing it. This story will be mostly forgotton by tomorrow, at the earliest, Monday at the latest. Compare that to, say, Valerie Wilson, “Bush lied” etc.
As far as I know, both guys in Port Lucie involved in the Denny’s altercation were both white. The Obama guy who shoved the McCain guy’s head into a wall is a thug.
As far as I know, the thuggish tactics of Comrade Obama are taken straight from the Chicago Daley machine. Hannity has described it as thus as well. I may have gone to public school, but I’m pretty damn sure the Daleys are white.
So, gillie, you can take your race card, smear some Boy Butter on it and shove it sideways.
One wonders if Erik or any of the other Obamunists will spare any outrage toward the state of Ohio officials digging for dirt on Joe Wurzelbacher. Let’s see, one nutty McCain campaign volunteer making a false report versus state employees trying to destroy a private citizen. I am guessing they’ll give a pass to the public employees; after all, Joe the Plumber did question The One, and for that he deserves to be destroyed.
Oh, and Virginia Democrat state officials throwing out military ballots while allowing out-of-state college students to vote illegally, that’s no big deal for the same reason.
Boys and girls, when did it become necessary to explain yourself to the little letter people? These derangement syndrome flying monkeys are a composite of graffiti taggers/punch bowl turders/and snicker artists hiding in the corner. Every once in a while they catch a breeze and launch their nether region gas into it. That does not make them worthy of notice.
Would you really like to welcome any of them to participate in thoughtful discussion? What they post is the top of their game.
Um heliotrope, you have a little letter 😛
Seriously, I more than welcome them to intellectual conversation, just know that few are up to it.
Hogwash and hypocracy!
Look at the vitriol in these comments about liberals: “little letter people”?
Vitriol as personified by Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, etc.
Liberals have been called traitorous, treasonous, slanderous, etc., etc. by Republicans for the last 25 years. And, you folks decry the lack of civility in politics? Please! Tell us all about Lee Atwater. Tell us about Karl Rove. Tell us about the Southern Strategy. Tell us about the massive anti-gay hysteria used in 2004.
Where were you when Rush Limbaugh was singing “Barack the Magic Negro” or calling Obama an “Arab.” Look at the ridiculous conspiracy theories that propose that Obama is a Muslim or socialist.
Factcheck.org!
You worry about thugs? Where was your worry when the Dixie Chicks faced death threats? You worry about the loss of liberty under Obama? Where was your concern when Bush and Cheney trashed the Constitution?
Hey: warrantless wiretaps? Great! Torture? Great! Secret prisons? Great!
Sarah Palin says that she will be able to convince McCain to push for the FMA. Where is your outrage? Instead, you have posting after posting celebrating someone who would relegate you to second-class citizens.
Um, blakes, when did Sarah Palin say she would convince McCain to push for the FMA? She just signaled her support for the proposal.
And how, pray tell, did Bush and Cheney, trash the constitution? When did they threaten anyone for daring to criticize them? Did they ask the Justice Department to investigate those critics them and groups which supported them? Or threaten television stations running critical ads?
Yeah, there’s been some angry rhetoric on the right, sometimes vile and disgusting. But, note the point of the post. I’m addressing a particular point.
Massive anti-gay hysteria in 2004? What??
Hogwash and hypocracy!
Idiocy and Bad Spelling!
By the way, the Magic Negro thing originated not with Rush Limbaugh, but with a liberal Los Angeles Times Columnist. You were probably ignorant of that fact.
True liberalism (what’s left of it) resides mostly on the Right.
Mainly due to Big Tent crap, and folks who are “traditional Libs driven from the party for not hewing to the party line 100% (Ala Liberman) or are fed up with the leftists’ lunacy on certain subjects (Orson Scott Card for instance)
As for the Hoax, I call Rhandi Rhodes on this, with one difference. Folks like Milady Malkin were posting probable BS on this from early on. There are many I have dealt with online who still feel Rhodes was waylaid by some Rovian Thug. The leftist blogs just stopped talking about it when it came out drunken clumsiness and an unexpected meeting with a curb was the cause.
Rush “called” Obama an Arab only if you leave out the part about Rush Quoting Libia’s leader Qadfy(kadaffy, qadaffi gahdafhi or how ever it is spelt this week) talking about How Barak is a Muslim and an Arab. Using the Media MAtters version of quotes, blakes is now oner of those who is calling Obama an Arab.
Warrantless taps are not warrantless. the warrant is gotten after the fact so the taps can be used. Besides, this was done to out side the U.S. calls some of which did come into the U.S. by terror suspects being watched for clues to prevent another attack. The only Americans directly affected were those calling and recieving calls from Terrorists and supporters of Terror, and there is no evidence it was ever used illegally or nefariously. Clinton on the other hand is said to have used it against political rivals for purely personal and political reasons…a far cry from Bush using it against AQ.
Obama is a socialist. Marxist in fact.
He has even admitted it in his answer to Joe The Plumber.
Redistribution is socialistic and communistic. The reason Obama was drawn to Wrights version of religion is it is pure and simple Marxist communism, with god added, and Racial identity added to the mix. It is based on a version used to make communism palatable to Latin Americans and South Americans of the Catholic variety, suborned by Cone and changed a bit for BLack Racial Identity politics.
Be like the Maoist Black Panthers making their own church.
I would ask why you blogged on it though, it was a non issue.
Maybe someone can help me out here. When did “thug” become a racial slur? My family has been using it for years to describe the white men who used to try to shake down the neighborhood and the Know Nothings (also white).
GPW: Sarah Palin said she would convince McCain on the FMA – and other issues, when she was interviewed by James Dobson. In that interview, she really went out on her own.
Eva, I think the FMLA is needed, especially with the actions of the Ct supremes (look, you have everything, lets give you more!). That people push for it is not surprising, as it’s a defensive measure.
I cheered the CT legislature’s decision, just as a booed the courts, as a valid process.
blake ‘little letter people’ is short hand for the fact that most of the more liberal posters do not capitalize. Not hatred, just a fact.
Also, blake, I see your mind’s made up, we’ll try not to confuse you with facts.
Please provide evidence, with links, the Rush called him an Arab and I’ll show you where liberals called him an Arab.
Hey: “Baghdad Jim” McDermott waving around a tape of a recorded phone call between Republicans. “Chuck You!” Schumer digging through Michael Steeles garbage and stealing his identity.
Can’t listen in on terrorists, but you CAN listen in on Republicans.
As far as the constitution, who is it that finds abortion and “separation of church and state” written in it? Who is it that supports gun bans or gun control laws? Who is it that’s working on resurrecting the “Fairness Doctrine”? Who is it that’s pushing to punish those who tell the truth about Comrade Obama? Who is it that pisses and moans when Christians “express” their religion freely?
Better yet, who put forth over 70 bills to take away the power of CIC from Bush?
Yeah? The GayLeftBorg has spent years celebrating those who actually have. What’s your point?
Where’s your outrage?
Also, please provide evidence (not liberal douchebag wishful thinking) of “secret prisons” and “torture”.
only when they are! Perhaps when they stop trying to undermine their nation in wartime for political gain, stop leaking top secret national security documents for political gain, destroying top secret national security documents to cover up their own negligence and ineptitude, etc, etc, etc — then decent people will stop calling them traitors.
Damn! what did i do there?
Speaking of Rush: While you’re at it, blakes, maybe you could remind us who abused their Senate Majority Failure powers by demanding Rush be silenced? Who was it that used US Senate stationary to demand the suspension of freedom of speech for a private citizen?
Here;s a twist: McCain Attack Hoax Victim was a RuPaulian. So, a Ron Paul supporter stages a fake attack to discredit McCain.
What’s more, a sane Aggie wouldn’t wear a Tennessee hoodie. Even Pete would agree on that one.