Obama to Supporters: “Get in Their Face”; One Supporter Responds: “Mind if I Use My Knife?”; Update: Hoax

Update, 10/24/08: Ashley Todd’s story was a complete fabrication. I’ll leave the post up, but I’m turning off comments because I can’t spend all day forwarding death threats against Ashley to the authorities. If you have something you need to get off your chest, use the contact form.

Update, 10/25/08: More on this racist cretin’s politics, including her participation in the Ron Paul campaign.  I was inclined to believe she was a self-absorbed loser looking for attention, but the Ron Paul connection screams nutjob.  At least she’s not a real McCain supporter.

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Remember when Barack Obama told his supporters that they should seek out independents and Republicans “to argue with them and get in their face”? Well, at least one Obama supporter has reportedly taken that battle cry quite literally. Via Drudge comes this terrifying story of a young McCain volunteer named Ashley Todd who was savagely attacked for her political allegiances:

Pittsburgh Police are investigating a report by a campaign staffer for John McCain that she was mugged and the letter B was cut into her face following a robbery in Bloomfield last night.

Police say the 20-year-old woman, who is from Texas, reported that the attack occurred around 9 p.m. after she withdrew $60 from an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street.

She said a man armed with a knife demanded her money. She gave it to him and began walking toward her car, which has McCain stickers.

Although the robber had moved away from her, he became agitated when he saw her car, punched her in the back of the head, pushed her to the ground and carved a B into her face, she reported.

Fox News reports that John McCain called Ashley this afternoon, and the Obama campaign extended their thoughts as well. KDKA says Sarah Palin also called the victim.

The right side of the blogosphere is already rife with suspicion that this brutal attack could be a hoax and that it has “a Tawana Brawley feel.” Some find it suspect that the incident occurred outside the range of ATM surveillance cameras and suspicious that the victim refused medical treatment at the scene. Other skeptics point to the fact that a photograph of the woman shows a backwards “B” carved into her face, as though she used a mirror to mutilate herself.

Others are inclined to believe the report and think it’s unlikely a woman would intentionally scar herself that way. Rob Taylor reminds us it ain’t easy to blacken your own eyes. HillBuzz is demanding that Obama condemn the actions of his follower and Gateway Pundit is horrified.

My thoughts go out to Ashley Todd, and I hope this incident doesn’t deter her from continuing to be involved in the political process.

But here’s my big picture take: It doesn’t matter whether Ashley was genuinely attacked for her political beliefs. What counts is that the story seems entirely plausible, and that’s scary. It’s entirely believable that an Obama supporter would viciously maim a McCain volunteer because we expect that behavior from people who delight in smearing the minor children of politicians.

Even if Ashley’s story proves to be completely false, ask yourself whether you believe it could happen. Do you want to vote with people you expect to physically attack their political opposites, or against them?

Update: Michelle Malkin also calls b.s. I still say the veracity of Ashley Todd’s story is neither here nor there. It’s the notion that vicious behavior from one of Obama’s enraged followers isn’t at all shocking that should give you pause.

October 23, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008, Liberal Absurdity, Misogyny

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Orson Scott Card on our Dishonest, Dishonorable Media

Like all reasonable Americans, Democrat Orson Scott Card is not pleased with the state of journalism our country. His tone reveals a sense of betrayal everyone should be feeling right now. Here are some excerpts from his open letter to “almost every local daily paper in America” (found via what if?):

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That’s what you claim you do, when you accept people’s money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that’s what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don’t like the probable consequences. That’s what honesty means. That’s how trust is earned.

Card’s only mistake is believing that the people to whom he directs his letter care about honor and honesty, that they value ethics and truth. But this election season has made clear that there won’t be any light bulb moments in newsrooms across America. These people have already decided: epiphany, thy name is Obama.

He continues:

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards’s own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

I appreciate Card’s optimism in reaching out to these “journalists,” and applaud his attempt to call them out on their despicable betrayal of Americans’ trust. But these rhetorical questions won’t shame members of the media into doing right by their readers. It is the American people – Joe the plumber and Tito the construction worker and Jenn the blogger – and not the media elite who will ultimately shape the outcome of the election.

We have reached a Dickensian moment in American history, the age of foolishness in journalism and the age of wisdom among patriotic citizens. So let the mainstream American media plummet into the worst of times; it is at the polls, and not in the newspapers, that we will ensure the best of times.

October 21, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008, Media Bias

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The Fat Lady Has Laryngitis

Last week all I heard about was the end of conservatism and the dawn of a liberal supermajority, and I’ve had enough.

Let’s start the week off right with a few reminders that this election ain’t over yet. Is the presidential race tight? Hell yes it is, but Joe the Plumber and his running mates John McCain and Sarah Palin can pull this off. We’re still on the road to victory, and the Republican ticket has plenty of fight left.

The PUMAs are some of John McCain’s most dedicated allies, and their optimism is not only commendable, but let’s face it, inspirational. A HillBuzz blogger gives us swing state hope and says, Trust us: Ohio will go to McCain. And don’t forget, the PUMAs have used their influence to help lull Obama supporters into a false sense of security by misleading pollsters about their voting intentions.

Even though the PUMAs are skewing the polls in Obama’s favor, a four-day tracking poll by Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby was released Sunday and shows The One is leading by only 3 points. With the 2.9 point margin of error, that’s a dead heat.

Of course, history shows that McCain and Palin still have plenty of time to surge ahead of the Dem ticket. 16 days before the 2004 election, Kerry held a 53 to 43 percent lead among likely voters in 13 battleground states. James Piereson also reminds us that history cautions against pessimism at this stage of the game.

If you need a daily dose of election optimism coated in satire and dipped in chuckles, I hope you’re visiting Jim Treacher’s blog. If you’d like to thank him, he accepts oral sex donations via a sidebar link. Apparently my first dude isn’t keen on sharing my talents, so all Jim gets from me is this lousy link.

October 20, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008

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I Just Saw Sarah Palin Get The Cooties

Appearing on Saturday Night Live proves Sarah Palin is a brave woman with a terrific sense of humor. I have every faith that she’ll make a great Vice President, but I don’t know how the hell she’s going to get rid of the nasty case of the cooties she just got from Alec Baldwin when he hooked his arm into hers during the opening sketch.

Let’s just hope that unlike Barack Obama, Alec can restrain himself from calling Sarah a “pig.” Nah, that’s a term of endearment he reserves for his daughter.

October 18, 2008 · Filed Under Sarah Palin

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Enraged Obama Cultist Bernard Feuerman Physically Attacks Female McCain Supporter

Allegedly, of course.

Crazed Obamunist Bernard Feurerman was arrested on a second-degree assault charge after a female McCain volunteer was beaten in the face with the stick from a campaign sign she had been holding. The attack took place just outside the subway station at 51st and Lex in Manhattan. Oh, and it happened on September 15th, more than a month ago, and has yet to be reported by the MSM who are too busy vetting plumbers and fabricating death threats against The One.

The victim, a middle-aged woman, told a reporter:

I was assaulted recently at a subway station when I was handing out McCain fliers with another supporter. We were standing there, talking to each other, and a rather benign, doughy-looking Jewish guy – not a person I would have expected to assault me – he saw us and he ripped a McCain sign out of his hands, broke it and tore it. And I said “What are you doing? You can’t do that!” And he was red in the face screaming, “You people are ridiculous!” And I said “Yeah, whatever, but you can’t do that.”

So I reached for the sign that he ripped up, and he grabbed another sign, broke it and ripped it to shreds. And when I said “You can’t do that,” he took the stick from the sign and started beating me on the head with it. He broke the skin on my head, he scratched my wrist, and I thought he broke my glasses, but he didn’t, and then he left.

I followed him down the stairs until I could get the police and I said, “You’re not going to get away with it.” And as soon as he saw the police he immediately went calm. He still had the stick in his hand, and you could see the injury on my face, and he admitted it. He was arrested. He actually said “I don’t know why I did this. It’s just those signs, and this election, it has me so upset.”

The deranged Dem has a January 23rd court date.

Oleg Atbashian at Pajamas Media has a copy of the District Attorney’s complaint (with names redacted.) Politico’s Ben Smith confirms the complaint is legit, and verifies that Bernard Feuerman is indeed the defendant. The “Silent” Majority No More and Ace have more on this vile incident. The New York Times and MSNBC do not.

Good job, Bernie. Now the blogosphere will make you famous and everyone will know your name. Was it worth it?

October 18, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008, Liberal Absurdity

4 Comments 

Forget ACORN, Let’s Talk Eggcorns

If you watched the third and final presidential debate, you saw both candidates discuss the appropriateness of using a litmus test to evaluate potential Supreme Court justices.  Apparently that subject interested the public: one of the top Google searches immediately following the debate was the eggcorn “lipness test.”  Ugh.

According to Google Trends, searches for the term weren’t just hot, they were volcanic.

In all fairness, more people searched for the correct term, “litmus test,” than for the eggcorn version of the term, but the volume of searches for “lipness test” was still surprisingly high.  “Litness test” and “litman’s test” also received a few searches each.

How exactly does one get through high school chemistry, American history, and civics classes without coming across the term “litmus test”?  I really hope these searches originated with inquisitive middle school kids.

October 16, 2008 · Filed Under Election 2008

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