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Woe is Drudge, Race Baiter
Politics Daily — ... You know you're in scary territory when Michele Malkin is the voice of reason in your midst. And kudos to her for spotting a despicable bit of race baiting from an overzealous McCain fan. Not everyone in our media sphere can claim the same skeptical approach. Earlier today, for instance, Fox News' Executive Vice President, John Moody, wrote the following: ...

He hit me and it felt like a kiss
SteveAudio — ... Indeed. How does this matter in big-picture reality, besides underscoring the idiocy of College Republicans? This is how, from Fox News Executive VP John Moody: ...

Dumbest. Campaign observation. Ever.
Political Animal — ... has drawn scrutiny, why political observers on the left and right are suspicious about the veracity of her claims, and highlights the fact that local police officials have noted "inconsistencies" and "changes" in Todd's version of events. I'll withhold judgment on this until more information is available. I won't, however, withhold judgment on this breathtaking piece from John Moody, Fox News' executive vice president, who described the alleged Ashley Todd crime as a "moment of truth." Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama's campaign is his ...

Joe The Mugger Update Update
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — A hoax. She confesses. One should recall Fox news executive vice-president John Moody's statement: If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting. I agree. All those who reported or linked to this without some skepticism were race-baiting. But Michelle Malkin deserves kudos for calling this. ...

Ugliness Watch: Full Circle Edition
The Stump — This one performed the impressive trick of starting out as anti-Obama ugliness and wound up being an arguably worse act of anti-McCain ugliness. It'll be interesting to see whether Drudge blares the hoax coverage the way he did the initial racist lie. So far he hasn't. P.S. Wonkette flags a delicious blog item from a senior Fox News executive: 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 ...

Fox VP: Hate crime hoax means McCain’s campaign is ‘over, forever linked to race-baiting.’
Think Progress — ... . On his blog yesterday, Fox News Executive VP John Moody, who is a Pittsburgh native, wrote that the incident’s credibility was inextricably tied to McCain’s campaign: ...

Fox exec: Alleged mugging will decide race
Ben Smith's Blog — Fox's executive Vice President for News, John Moody, last night cast the alleged mugging in Pittsburgh as a watershed in the race: 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. If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting. The reality, I think, was that ...

And This Is Even Dumber
Balloon Juice — WTF, over? Fox news editor John Moody: 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. If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting. This is as dumb as attempting to blame Obama for what some jackass ...

Wingnutosphere punk'd (yet) again
Daily Kos — ... -- it was all over the right-wing blogs. Some poor white girl, 20-year-old Ashley Todd of Texas, was mugged at an ATM, but when the mugger (a big black guy) saw her car with the McCain sticker, he beat her and carved a letter "B" in her face with a knife. Apparently it was a dyslexic mugger because the "B" was carved backward, but whatever -- it proved that Obama's supporters were violent and craaazy! Ever the blowhards, Fox News piled on, and their Executive VP of "news" wrote this: Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator ...

Girl Confesses to Making Up Attack Story
Stop The ACLU — ... sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter “B” in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker. Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car. Hot Air has lots of details. Its shameful, but I don’t think its as one FOX reporter said … this doesn’t make it “over for McCain.”

The Hoax
Matthew Yglesias — ... business because it seemed like a hoax but it would be unseemly to accuse a victim of perpetrating a hoax just based on general intuition. But for the record, Ashley Todd has admitted she was lying about the idea that a black man mugged her, sexually assaulted her, and scratched a “B” into her cheek because she had a McCain bumper sticker on her car. Matt Corley observes that before the hoax was exposed, Fox News Executive VP John Moody, a Pittsburgh native, had some provocative thoughts on the matter: If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven ...

Does Fox's John Moody Really Think McCain's Campaign Is Over?
News Hounds — ... Yesterday, after Drudge broke it, various news media outlets reported that a McCain campaign volunteer, in Pittsburgh, was allegedly assaulted by a black man who carved a "B" into her face because she had a McCain bumper sticker. Fox News Executive VP, John Moody, wrote this on his blog: ...

Bigoted McCain aide lied about attacker
WTF Is It Now?!? — Fox Nooze VP John Moody yesterday: "If the [Ashley Todd incident] turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."  ...

The Ashley Todd hoax
Political Animal — ... . I don't think the actions of one sick volunteer say anything at all about John McCain or his campaign. They do, however, tell us a lot about right-wing yellow journalists, from Drudge on down, who manipulated primitive racial-sexual fears for partisan gain. Quite right. There's been an ongoing "debate" (I use the word loosely) of late about Drudge's influence, and the Todd fiasco is likely to do some lasting harm to his credibility and judgment. It's about time. There's also this quote from John Moody , Fox News' executive vice president, which we talked about earlier. If ...

What Ashley Todd Did Wrong
All articles at Blogcritics — ... of being attacked by a large African-American man on the basis of political affiliation. The black eye, bumps, and 'B' swash was all her own doing. This may not come as a shock to those who saw the photo, but it's certainly not a shock to those who ever dated a 20-year-old girl and knows how prone they are to lying about stuff. Fox News's executive vice-president John Moody thinks " Senator McCain ...

McCain Campaign fed the Hoax Racist Assault Story to the media!
Crooks and Liars — ... 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...read on This should hurt McCain severely. As FOX's Executive VP, John Moody said: If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest ...

Attack Hoax -- how should Drudge, Politico, etc. respond?
Corrente — ... carried the now-discredited story of a politically-motivated attack on a white 20-year-old woman who was in Pittsburgh to volunteer for the GOP. She has since come forward and admitted her story was false.She has a history of mental illness; may she find the help she needs.But what of the media — some of it “mainstream,” much of it Web-based — where the story broke, grew, and spawned outrage? ...

The Ashley Todd Hoax Is America's Hoax
Open Left - Front Page — ... This, quite naturally, puts the entire black community at risk.  Which is, of course, the underlying point.  A point that's very much alive today, as revealed in a blog post from Fox Executive Vice President Joe Moody, titled, with unintended irony, "Moment of Truth": ...

John Moody of Fox News goes out on a political limb -- and apparently is still on it
Top of the Ticket — ... In case you missed the item on the Fox Forum, headlined "Moment of Truth," Moody wrote about the the young, white ...

McCain Campaign, Right-Wing Media Pushed Ugly, Race-Baiting Hoax
The Democratic Daily — ... Which should mean, according to FOX News VP John Moody, that “McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.” ...

Brian Williams: McCain Campaign Spread 'B' Hoax To Reporters
Daily Kos — So we already know the McCain campaign played some sort of a role in helping get the 'B' hoax off the ground in the first place. Now, thanks to Brian Williams, we know that once it was off the ground, McCain-land continued spreading the hoax to reporters, fueling the attention it got by publicizing phone calls from both McCain and Palin to the so-called victim. On Thursday, FOX News Executive VP John Moody wrote: If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s ...

The Republican Circular Firing Squad of Flying Attack Monkeys Commences!
J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — ... Moment of Truth « FOX Forum « FOXNews.com: It had to happen. Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it. Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old white volunteer for John McCain’s presidential campaign, says she was mugged at an ATM machine in Pittsburgh (my hometown) by a big black man. She further says he threw her down, then disfigured her by carving the letter “B” into her face with a sharp implement when he saw that she supported ...

Ashley Todd, PA Racist Hoax "Victim," Was Paid Organizer for College Republican National Committee, Not a Volunteer
BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash — ... however, is the fact that the McCain campaign would twist and promote the story. On top of that, several journalists abandoned their integrity, playing along after Todd was exposed by downplaying her role to "volunteer," when she was actually a paid employee of the CRNC. The idea of Todd as an unstable volunteer minimizes the relationship between her and Republicans supporting McCain. Either way, you can bet John Moody, executive vice president of FOX News, will do his best to cover what he wrote in his blog before Todd was revealed to have made the whole thing up:"If the ...