Actually, they made a public statement which said:
I really like the ambiguity of the last bit, because the person was, indeed, swiftly apprehended and will hopefully soon be brought to justice.
That sort of public statement is quite different from a personal phone call by both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.
Right, I agree. I said a lot that the point I thought was crazy to believe was that she did it deliberately to incite racist unrest, but I don’t blame you for missing that because it was posted in mid-Saturday-afternoon in the middle of a long thread with a lot going on. Plus I even tune my own self out sometimes.
At some point, people arguing with me turned my position into ‘she was just crazy and not responsible’, which I also understand a bit because I did point out the possibility. Here’s my list of possibilities, in order of most to least likely:
She’s somewhat mentally ill but still knows right from wrong, and it led her to extreme attention-seeking behavior, for which she should still be held responsible regardless of the contributing factors. In this case, her racist tendencies are clear, but as an unwell human being she still deserves compassionate treatment.
She’s extremely mentally ill and her story of, hah, blacking out in her car is true, and she shouldn’t be held responsible any more than someone who has an unpredictable seizure should be treated as a criminal if their car crashes. In this case, the only racism I see comes from cultural remnants, in the same way that a person with Tourette’s screaming the n-word probably doesn’t mean it.
She is an evil racist who deliberately chose these images to incite racial unrest in a misguided attempt to support the McCain campaign. THIS is the theory I’ve been arguing it’s nuts to simply assume with no evidence.
She was hired by the McCain campaign.
She was hired by the Obama campaign.
Many people here are going with #3, with the rest opting for a modified #1 which implies a worldview that doesn’t contain the possibility of someone being culpable, immoral and mentally ill at the same time. I believe that is not only possible, but fairly common especially in cases like this.
To my mind it is absurd to fault either party for messages of sympathy before the truth was known (though plenty appropriate to fault McCain supporters for attempting to make political hay over it, of course).
The politicians had no real choice - not responding looks like caullousness, responding looks like gulibility. Given that the woman was one of his own campaign workers a phone call was not out of line - if the lying sack of shit happened to be an Obama worker, I suspect Obama would have called and McCain issued a public statement.
Of course, she was also willing to make a false claim of sexual assault, which is spitting in the face of any real victims of it.
Me? I don’t see how anyone could NOT see the obvious race-baiting, but the assholishness of fake rape/assault claims is enough to make me think she’s a hateful cunt even if you DON’T think race is a factor.
So, her attention-whoring was damaging to a decent percentage of women as well as to black men. I’m of the opinion that the cause (mental illness, inept political machinations, whatever) is far less important than the effect (one more woman making it harder for people to believe real victims of rape/assault, black men being portrayed as sex-obsessed, violent criminals that can’t resist the urge to molest ANY white woman who crosses their path, even long enough to finish mugging them or carving their face).
How much pity does she deserve? How much time do we spend twisting ourselves into knots trying to make her the victim of mental illness or some other justification for what she’s done?
And what’s the excuse for the McCain staffer that fed this story - in all it’s race-baiting glory - to the press before the police finished their investigation or released any information?
No honest person can claim that even though Todd has confessed to making it all up, there was no damage done. Some people will have heard the initial story and then WON’T hear it was a hoax. Some people will have heard it was a hoax and believe it’s proof that women will “cry rape” for attention or to get what they want. Those people aren’t going to decide MENTALLY ILL women will “cry rape,” it will be all women. It’s not all people who will decide that, and I hope it’s not even many people. But it’s already happening, I guarantee you that.
I don’t see thinking it’s better to decide the truth based on facts, rather than clearly extreme emotions as expressed above, as “twisting ourselves into knots” to excuse Ms. Todd.
Don’t you mean a surprisingly large number of people indicted for a crime?
Thank you.
I’ve been following the story since it broke on Fark, and there are a few things that have both amused and vexed me.
Firstly, in her arrest photos/video, she does in fact still have remnants of a black eye (harder to see with her glasses on). But it looked to be very old in the later stages of healing with only that ugly grey look you get right before it fades to greenish yellow. I doubt very much, she would actually be stupid enough to use eyeshadow that could wipe off. Yes, her stupidity is truly monumental, but make-up is too risky. She likely took advantage of an old injury.
Secondly, she has a well-documented history of lying throughout this campaign. While campaigning for Ron Paul in Texas, she was dismissed after she:
*. . . posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies. “She would call the opposing campaign and pretend she was on their campaign to get information,” Mr. Costine said last night. “We had to remove her because of the tactics she displayed. After that we had nothing to do with her.”
. . . About a month earlier, he said, Ms. Todd sent an e-mail to the Ron Paul group saying her tires were slashed and that campaign paraphernalia had been stolen from her car because she supported Mr. Paul* (AOL News).
Secondly, there’s her “Mean Black Janitor” YouTube rant about how a janitor at the Pittsbrugh college was tearing down all her McCain posters. A racist lie? Not necessarily. There may have been a janitor taking down posters, but when I was in school, that was their job. Unapproved crap stuck on walls had to come down. You had to get your material officially stamped by the student union and use the approved bulletin boards.
Liar? Racist? Mentally ill? Probably all three. Paranoia can discriminate. Some paranoid delusions center around the “government”, some around “space aliens”, her fixation was her “political/ideological enemy”. I found it rather amusing that her description of her attacker wasn’t a half-bad description of Obama himself (she even mentioned “shiny shoes” suggesting patent-leather dress shoes rather than the speedier Nikes you’d expect a mugger to wear for the getaway).
But wingnut or no, when people voiced outrage that she complained that the media went overboard, I actually had to agree with her.
It’s not unusual for nutcases to come out of the woodwork during election time. It’s not unheard of for nutbars to punch themselves in the nose to validate a false claim of abuse (look on Fark once in awhile for drunks drinking liquid paper to foil a breath test or hitting themselves while on camera while in police custody to later make claims of police brutality.) How many women came forward post-Monica Lewinsky with false claims of “Oh, I slept with Clinton too!”?
Ashley Todd should never have made the news. Her story at best, the most tenuous grasp on credulity, which rapidly vanished as her credibility unravelled. Even if she was a legitimate victim of a mugging, how did her as yet unsubstantiated claim get so far so fast? Within hours, prior to any confimation of a crime from police, the VP of Fox News was claiming it could destroy either one of the candidates’ campaigns.
The police didn’t release her picture to the media. Her friend gave the photos “only to the police… and the College Republicans.” Hello? Didn’t that raise any red flags for anyone? But up it went on Drudge with the headline “Mulitation” (!!! implied), before the Pittsburgh-Gazette even had seen them.
Mentally ill or overzealous attention whore, it doesn’t really matter. Ultimately, she never should have made the news. The media was too overzealous itself, to pounce on such an inflammatory story without due dilligenc. (In all fairness, even some right wing pundits who would normally pounce on it were cautious enough to wait it out before commenting. Kudos to the more restrained.)
Now I kind of feel sorry for the (possibly mentally ill) idiot. Her life is ruined even if she can validate her claim on of illness. Democrats want to slap her, suckered-in Republicans want to slap her, rabid Republicans want to kill her, and her greatest claim to fame will be “the Crazy Liar”. Good luck getting a job, kid. Her best hope is that the media will drop her story like a hot potato and she’ll be forgotten by the time the next president is inaugurated.
Hey, Crayons, welcome back!
Thanks, Cervaise. I haven’t completely decided if I’ll stay. I started lurking again sometime after the free posting was re-instated, but during a time when the Barn forum was created and Otto was banned. I was so thoroughly disgusted by SDMB staff behavior and appalled with Ed’s contempt, that I may not return permanently.
I plan on continuing to mostly lurk to see how it goes and get a better idea of the new tone of the Board.
Addendum: You can edit posts now? Since when?
Ditto. Nice to see one of the old-school freaks back on board. 
Um, that’s all I have to say in this thread btw. Being a foreigner, I don’t have a dog in the US election race, except to say that shit such as was exemplified in the OP doesn’t happen in (for example) Australian elections. Hey, there’s no time for gratuitous bullshit here…an election is ‘called’ and within two months (max) we rock up for polling on election day. It cuts out a helluva lot of the miscellaneous stuff and gets down to basics.
Your processes in the US leave most of the rest of the world dumbfounded by the theatrics and your superfluosity (is that a word??) surrounding the elections.
I just hope to fuck that you lot pick a good 'un this time.
Pretty please??
We’ve got nowhere to go but up.
Ditto-I’ve missed you, Crayons! Please stick around for a bit-you were always one of my favorite posters!
Editing-for a while, now. It’s a five minute time limit-but time limits are common on most boards I visit.
As for Todd, Drudge would sell out his own mother if it would get him hits.
She wasn’t a rogue volunteer. She actually worked for them.
Gee, she really pulled the wool over the eyes of the prosecutor, judge, court-ordered psychiatrist and mental health facility, convincing them she’s unwell, huh? What a great liar she must be!
The only thing unwell about her is that she was able to delude herself that she could get away with it. Whatever mental illness she has or suffers from or whatever didn’t *make *her pull this dumb-fuckery … that was all her.