These scumbags will stop at nothing...

Hoax: McCain volunteer admits to fabricating attack story

Ashley Todd, the McCain campaign volunteer who was robbed and allegedly beaten after the assailant spotted a McCain bumper sticker on her car, has admitted to police that she made the whole thing up. KDKA:
Police tell KDKA that a campaign volunteer 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. Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.This story was fishy from the start, and while it's sad that anyone would go to such lengths in order to fabricate a political story, I'm glad the truth has come out. This is probably the only time I'll ever say this, but kudos to Michelle Malkin and the some of the more reasonable right-wingers out there who called foul from the very start. Another interesting facet of the story: John Moody, executive VP of FOX News, is on record saying that, if true, this story could sink Obama. If not, says Moody, McCain is done. We're awaiting your update, John. Jon Perr adds: "Joe the Plumber" has been replaced by "Ashley the Fraud." UPDATE: From Jamie:
MSNBC is now reporting that in a press conference with police Todd said she didn't know how she got the B, but she may have done it herself. They also say she has had mental problems in the past. So far she is being charged with filing a false police report and other charges may still follow.
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McCain Campaign fed the Hoax Racist Assault Story to the media!

Big news just hit the fan for McCain. I knew this was a bogus story when it came out that she refused medical treatment for her wounds. I've been through enough these last few years and know the pain would have been incredible and anyone of us would have begged for a doctor immediately. Well, it looks like the McCain campaign has their fingers all over this phony volunteer attack story and that's big trouble for him.
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...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 for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.
For Pittsburgh, a city that has done so much to shape American history over the centuries, another moment of truth is at hand.
Bozell's operation ran with it and attacked the media. "Obama Supporter Maims McCain Volunteer, Will Media Care?"Now I ask the question. Since McCain's camp was involved in trying to promote this race baiting attack story against Obama, will the media care? Let's hope so.
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"I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those."
-- John McCain in 2000, about robocalls smearing McCain made by the Bush campaign, some of which were made by FLS-Connect, a company owned by Jeff Larson.

"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers..."
-- 2008 McCain campaign robocalls reportedly linked to a company owned by Larson.

what I hate about Obama

He's got the Muslim - you can't just turn it off.

"He says he's not Muslim but I don't know if you can just turn it off like that..."

"These are low-information voters who don't read newspapers, barely watch TV news and aren't engaged in the issues..."

It's amazing they can put on a good face and show up to debate the guy on the same stage

WASHINGTON (AP) - Cindy McCain has accused Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama of running "the dirtiest campaign in American history."

Mr. Burns is really making the rounds...

Tonight
In what might be the second worst kept secret of all time, I will be on the Colbert Report tonight. We will also, of course, be liveblogging the debate.

-- Nate Silver at 5:22 PM 51 Comments...

He was also in the studio last night with Olbermann. He does a weird thing with his eyes--distracted by the lights, like a moth. He has Obama at nearly a 90% win chance right now, which means his fall will be a spectacular crispy, crackly fireball, preceded by so much sleaze that the Swift Boaters will look like a bunch of Girl Scouts in comparison.
~

liberal media HATING McCain camp just because they get a little confused about the facts sometimes

I guess we'll have to keep explaining to them over and over the difference between factual truth and emotional truth.

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

The errors in McCain strategist Steve Schmidt’s charges against Obama and Sen. Joe Biden were particularly notable because they seemed unnecessary. Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family's already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama’s embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter’s over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when — in each case — the truth would have been damaging enough.

“Any time the Obama campaign is criticized at any level, the critics are immediately derided as liars,” Schmidt told reporters. (Yeah! And since you always lie about us being liars, that means every time you accuse us of lying, you're lying again, so we're not the liars, you're the liars - LIARS! Ed.)

But as he went on to list a series of stories he thought reporters should be writing about Obama and Biden, in almost every instance he got the details wrong.

Well, they're not lies if a P.O.W. tells them...

McCain Lies Watch: 56 and counting

McCain Contradicts Himself -- Yet Again
John McCain Abandons 26-Year Record Opposing Regulation
Unable to Understand Economy, McCain Suggests 9/11 Commission-Style Probe He Opposed

CNN Demolishes Every McCain Campaign Lie

Obama wants to teach sex to kindergarteners? Lie.
Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere? Lie.
Palin hasn’t taken earmarks as Governor? Lie.
Alaska produces 20% of America’s energy? Lie.
Palin visited Iraq and Ireland? Lie.
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When even Karl Rove thinks you're an @sshole....

you're a YOOOOOOOOOGE @SSHOLE.

But when half the electorate is profoundly developmentally disabled, being an @sshole works.

Turdblossom: "There ought to be an adult who says, 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad?'"

I missed the apology

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"I think they put some lipstick on the pig but it's still a pig."
-- John "Piggie" McCain, in 2007, comparing Hillary Clinton's new health care plan to the Clinton plan of 1993

Washington Post is SHOCKED to discover that McCain is an @SSHOLE

With a phony flap and a misleading attack ad, the McCain campaign sinks into silliness

How come the minute somebody mentions the word "pig," the Rethuglicans think they're talking about Palin? Oh... ok I guess I do kinda see that...

IT'S HARD to think of a presidential campaign with a wider chasm between the seriousness of the issues confronting the country and the triviality, so far anyway, of the political discourse. On a day when the Congressional Budget Office warned of looming deficits and a grim economic outlook, when the stock market faltered even in the wake of the government's rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when President Bush discussed the road ahead in Iraq and Afghanistan, on what did the campaign of Sen. John McCain spend its energy? A conference call to denounce Sen. Barack Obama for using the phrase "lipstick on a pig" and a new television ad accusing the Democrat of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex before they learn to read.

Mr. Obama's supposedly offending remark was not only not offensive -- it also was not directed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
. . .

"Obama's one accomplishment?" the narrator asks. "Legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' -- to kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama: wrong on education. Wrong for your family."

John McCain is a serious man who promised to wage a serious campaign. Win or lose, will he be able to look back on this one with pride? Right now, it's hard to see how.

McCain campaign estimate of Americans' intelligence plunges to new low in heavy trading; also, AP's Nedra Pickler still fullas#i+

Nedra:

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."

Oh, my, yes, it was such a clear connection. It was almost as glaring as the time he "didn't mention Clinton by name".

also known as a LIE

Out of bounds: McCain ad misstates Obama sex-ed record

"This is a deliberately misleading accusation..."

what this guy said

I Guess Republicans Think Community Organizing Is Funny

"Of all the things that both Gulliani and Palin could have fixed on as a line of attack, the idea of community organizing as work for pussies is not what I would have expected, and Lord knows my expectations after Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are prety low. But what amazed me was how many folks on the floor of the RNC Convention actually laughed and whooped it up at the very mention of being a community organizer, before even getting to the supposed punchline about how it doesn't give you any “real” experience."

Issue #1: Would you be less inclinded to vote for Barrack Hussein Obama if you knew that he has an illegitimate white baby?

McCain Sells His Soul: Hires Man Who Sunk His 2000 Campaign
By: Bill W. @ 11:00 AM - PDT

John McCain has claimed that he believes “there is a special place in hell” for Tucker Eskew and the others who were behind the push-poll that implanted the idea in S.C. voters’ minds in 2000 that he had fathered an illegitimate black child, but that sure didn’t stop him from hiring Eskew to help prepare Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Jake Tapper: McCain Hires GOP Operative Who Helped Smear Him in South Carolina in 2000
Former officials of Sen. John McCain’s 2000 campaign expressed shock and disbelief Monday to learn than the GOP presidential nominee had hired South Carolina political consultant Tucker Eskew.
Eskew, along with Warren Tompkins and Neal Rhodes, were key members of then-Gov. George W. Bush’s South Carolina team during the 2000 primaries. McCain and his team long held Bush, Tompkins, Rhodes and Eskew responsible for the various smears against McCain and his family in the Palmetto state during that contentious contest. […]
Asked if the McCain campaign would have a comment about hiring one of the South Carolina strategists the senator and his 2000 campaign team once held responsible for smears against him, McCain 2008 spokesman Brian Rogers emailed, “No.”

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise after McCain hired Rove’s protegé two months ago and began running the negative campaign he pledged not to. There’s apparently no depth of depravity that McCain won’t stoop to and no issue he won’t flip-flop on in an attempt to win this election.

I wonder how this will turn out?

Obama, McCain Aim to Curb '527s'

Sen. Barack Obama's top fundraisers have asked his campaign donors to refrain from contributing to liberal independent political organizations in hopes of controlling the tone and message of the general-election campaign.

At a meeting in Indianapolis on May 2, members of the Democratic front-runner's finance committee made it clear Obama (Ill.) is worried that overtly negative advertising from outside organizations could undermine his themes of unity and hope.

"If people want to support our campaign, they should do it through our campaign," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

The meeting was only the most overt effort by Obama or Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, to freeze out "527" groups -- named after a provision in the tax code -- which are not allowed to openly support a candidate but have helped define recent elections through negative advertising.

The McCain campaign has been less organized than Obama's in its efforts to counter the groups, but the senator from Arizona has made clear his antipathy toward them -- without much effect.

"We will attack Obama viciously on all fair issues, whether they are national security, whether they are taxes or the economy," promised Chris LaCivita, one of the Republican strategists behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that attacked Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry in 2004. LaCivita added: "At the end of the day, every individual has a right to participate in the political process whether John McCain likes it or not. It's their constitutional right."

A History of Pandering

This doesn't include the last 3 weeks, so add at least another half dozen...

The master of his flip-flopping domain

Here’s the updated list:
* McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a “‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded. Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”
* McCain claims to have considered and not considered joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.
* In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.
* McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.” His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.
* McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal.
* McCain’s campaign unveiled a Social Security policy that the senator would implement if elected, which did not include a Bush-like privatization scheme. In March 2008, McCain denounced his own campaign’s policy.
* In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.
* In November 2007, McCain reversed his previous position on a long-term presence for U.S. troops in Iraq, arguing that the “nature of the society in Iraq” and the “religious aspects” of the country make it inevitable that the United States “eventually withdraws.” Two months later, McCain reversed back, saying he’s prepared to leave U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 years.
* McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.
* McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. Now he’s against it.
* On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own legislation.
* In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.
* McCain said before the war in Iraq, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough.”
* McCain said he was the “greatest critic” of Rumsfeld’s failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as “a mission accomplished.” In March 2004, he said, “I’m confident we’re on the right course.” In December 2005, he said, “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”
* McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.
* McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.
* McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.
* McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy, but he reversed course in February.
* On a related note, he said 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and insisted he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.
* In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.
* McCain supported a major campaign-finance reform measure that bore his name. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.
* McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.
* McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.
* McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.
* McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.
* McCain decided in 2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.

And:

McCain in DNC Ad: I think we’re better off overall.
Viera: So, Senator, you do not believe we’re better off by any means than we were eight years ago?
McCain: Oh, no. No.

nitpicking...

"Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering, Catholic- bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins.

But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right.

After 9/11, Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the Oval Office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America."

presidential cage fighting (cont'd)

Ongoing nomination fight hurting Clinton more than Obama
By CHARLES BABINGTON and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a dramatic reversal, an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll found that a clear majority of Democratic voters now say Sen. Barack Obama has a better chance of defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in November than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

While Obama and Clinton are both sustaining dents and dings from their lengthy presidential fight, the former first lady is clearly suffering more. Democratic voters no longer see her as the party's strongest contender for the White House.

Voters of all types have gotten a better sense of Obama, who was an obscure Illinois legislator just four years ago. As more people moved from the "I don't know him" category in the AP-Yahoo! News poll, more rated Obama as inexperienced, unethical and dishonest. And 15 percent erroneously think he's a Muslim (only 15 percent? shocking -- ed.), thanks in part to disinformation widely spread on the Internet (and the fact that there are lots of yoooooooge idiots out there -- ed.).
....

But Obama now appears to be the stronger candidate, she said, and electing a Democrat in November is paramount. If McCain wins and continues many of President Bush's economic and foreign policies, Costello said, "I think I would just sit down and cry." (There's no crying in s#i+-blowing-up lady... I'll be jumping off a cliff -- ed.)

She just sounded so obnoxious...

So I googled the spokesperson for the McCain campaign, Jill Hazlebaker and found this little oldie but goodie from mydd.com:

Kean-employed Liar Jill Hazelbaker Busted in the New York Times

by Matt Stoller, Thu Sep 21, 2006 at 01:07:04 AM EST

Republicans seem to be learning bad lessons from Dan Gerstein and Lee Siegel about lying and sockpuppetry.

The Internet postings came from people calling themselves "cleanupnj," "usedtobeblue" and "AmadeusNJ." They said they were concerned Democrats, "lifelong liberals," and they were troubled by the United States senator from New Jersey, Robert Menendez.

Mr. Menendez, they said, was up to no good. For instance, did you notice that a Congressional lawyer who Mr. Menendez said cleared him of ethics issues regarding a controversial real estate deal died last year? Wasn't there something fishy about that?

But the liberal Democratic hosts of BlueJersey.com, the Web log where such comments were posted, smelled something fishy about the postings, and said they traced them to a computer inside the campaign headquarters of Mr. Menendez's Republican opponent, Thomas H. Kean Jr.

They suspect the person behind the postings, which have appeared on the site regularly since July, is Mr. Kean's campaign spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker. Ms. Hazelbaker called the accusations "nonsense," and said neither she nor anyone else she knows of in the office had anything to do with the postings. "I've never e-mailed them nor posted on the Web site," she said on Wednesday. "It's a blog. You can't believe what's posted on blogs." She declined to make Mr. Kean available to discuss the matter.

The Kean campaign's technical adviser said that the Internet protocol, or I.P., address that linked the posts to the Kean headquarters was an old one, "from over a month ago." But an e-mail message Ms. Hazelbaker sent to a reporter on Wednesday shares the same I.P. address.

Hazelbaker simply lied to reporters, and Juan Melli of Bluejersey and official rabid lamb leader of New Jersey busted her (check out the funny comments by Scott Shields and Matt Miller). I'm not worried about the New Jersey race poll numbers - most people in New Jersey probably don't know that it's Tom Kean Jr. running rather than Tom Kean Sr yet, but they will in a few weeks.

Blogs like Bluejersey and Colorado Confidential provide an essential platform for progressives to achieve power. I have no idea why Tom Kean's spokesperson is posting on Bluejersey and lying about it to New York Times reporters. She's probably just sort of stupid and arrogant. But it's good that Hazelbaker getting busted flat-out now when it doesn't matter, so that journalists will know to double-check her nonsense when the campaign really heats up in November.