McCain Camp Pushed Ashley Todd Hoax Story - Did They Also Help Create It?

We know from Talking Points Memo that the McCain campaign in Pennsylvania flogged the false McCain volunteer mutilation story to the media:

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.

The KDKA reporter had called McCain's campaign office for details after seeing the story -- sans details -- teased on Drudge.

The McCain spokesperson's claims -- which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world -- is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.

It was a story on Countdown last night:


And, Brian Williams said on NBC News:

"...the McCain campaign steered reporters' attention to the story yesterday..."

So, fine. It's clear that the McCain camp pushed the hell out of the story and that even McCain and Palin themselves got directly involved by personally calling Ashley Todd, but here's what's catching my interest.

1) From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Zone 5 detectives were handling the case initially, but it was turned over to the robbery squad last night after the case made national headlines.

When Ms. Todd reported the incident, "nowhere did she say to the officer that [the assailant] made reference to the bumper sticker. I don't know how she came to the conclusion that he noticed the sticker," Cmdr. Ross said.

Question: Did she link the "attack" at all to a supposed Obama supporter in her initial interview? Did she have any "help" or suggestions made to her between interviews with the police?

2) Also, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Mr. Garcia took the widely published picture of Ms. Todd with her injuries. He said he took several photographs with a digital camera to document what had happened. He said he only gave copies of the photos to police and Ms. Todd's employer, the College Republicans. One photo appeared on The Drudge Report on Thursday, setting off a storm of media attention.

Question: How did the picture (along with the story) get to Drudge? Did it come from the College Republicans? Did it come from McCain's PA campaign offices via the College Republicans? We know he got it before the local media.

3) John Moody, Fox News Executive Vice President, said on his blog:

"If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

Question: Did he suspect just how far into the story the McCain camp was?

What we do know is that a young woman with self-confessed mental problems self-inflicted a "B" scratch on her face. She did not initially want medical attention. Nor did she wish to make a police report. She was urged/pushed? to do so. She seemingly initally did not mention any reference to McCain/Palin signage as being the a cause of the "attack." Nor did she report a sexual assault at first.

Somehow between her initial police report and the story on Drudge this became a national political and racial football that attempted to slander Obama supporters, the ever-ready "dangerous, angry black male" and the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

I want the details on how that happened.

UPDATE: From TPM:

In response to our story, campaign spokesperson Brian Rogers told MSNBC that the campaign didn't provide those details to the local reporters, but that the police did, and the reporters were sloppy in attributing them to the McCain campaign (at the 0:54 mark):

So here's what the McCain camp would have you believe. Two different TV stations. Two different reporters. Neither could distinguish what they were told by the police (whom they presumably deal with on a daily basis) from what a campaign flack told them. So thorough is their sloppiness that even after the fact, upon reflection, both reporters stick by their stories, continuing to misattribute police statements to the campaign.

The McCain campaign denial also requires you to believe that, more than 12 hours after the concocted attack, the police -- who say they were suspicious of the hoaxster's account from the beginning -- started leaking to reporters an incendiary version of events that didn't even make it into the original police report of the incident. [Emphasis added]

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Heard on Fred Honsberger's Show Yesterday

Kathleen Willey has written a book. And for that, she was on Fred's air. You can listen to the interview here and here.

For those who don't remember, in 1998 Kathleen Willey accused then-President Clinton of sexually assaulting her in the White House in 1993.

During the interview with Fred, she stated that she'd been offered a great deal of money from the tabloids for her story. She didn't take that money because she felt that it would damage her credibility.

Oops. Too late.

Take a look at what the Office of Independent Counsel (the good folks who spend tens of millions of dollars investigationg the Clinton White House in the late 90s) had to say about Willey's honesty.

Page 7:

The Independent Counsel agreed not to prosecute Willey for any offense arising out of the investigation, including false statements in her Jones deposition, so long as she cooperated fully and truthfully with the investigation. Following that first immunity agreement, Willey gave false information to the FBI about her sexual relationship with a former boyfriend, and acknowledged having lied about it when the agents confronted her with contradictory evidence. Following Willey’s acknowledgement, the Independent Counsel agreed not to prosecute her for false statements in this regard.

She acknowledged lying to the OIC and the FBI.

And then there's the contradictions with other OIC testimony. For instance Linda Tripp's. This is from Salon.com:

Tripp testified she saw Willey "a lot" the day of her meeting with Clinton. "A lot," she repeated. And she met Willey after the meeting, as planned, and described her as being "very excited, happy, but flustered and completely overwhelmed by the event." Tripp said her face was "flushed," and she "smiled from ear to ear." Tripp said Willey related that she told Clinton "something to the effect that she was throwing herself" on his mercy, when he suddenly kissed her forcefully. "'His tongue was down my throat'" and "'I think I kissed him back,'" Tripp quoted Willey as saying. "His hands were all over her backside," and "he put her hand on his penis," Tripp claimed Willey told her. That night Willey and Tripp "discussed whether Willey would be a girlfriend of the president," said Tripp.

Hardly good news for Bill, but a far far cry from a sexual assault. And given the context of the feeding-frenzy at the time, why would Linda Tripp tell this story and not an assault story if she knew the assault story? Why wouldn't Kathleen Willey tell Linda Tripp the assault story?

According to the salon.com article, Willey and Tripp had been working together for months to somehow get Clinton to return Kathleen Willey's flirtatious affections.

Finally there's this from the OIC:

Willey and President Clinton, the only two percipient witnesses to the alleged encounter, substantially and materially disagree on what occurred. The burden of proving what actually occurred in a case against President Clinton rests on the prosecutor, and Willey would be the government’s principal witness. In the Independent Counsel’s judgment, the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the President’s deposition testimony about his conduct with Willey was false.

Linda Tripp’s testimony that Willey had a previous romantic interest in President Clinton (and appeared to view his alleged advances positively) departed from Willey’s testimony. Tripp’s cooperation with this Office in the Lewinsky investigation ultimately yielded evidence about President Clinton’s conduct with Monica Lewinsky that was contrary to the President’s testimony. Thus, evidence supplied by Linda Tripp regarding Willey that was consistent with President Clinton’s testimony would likely be favorably received by a jury.

Even assuming Willey’s testimony was truthful about the incident with President Clinton, her testimony at trial would be subject to further challenge based on the differences between her deposition and grand jury statements, as well as her acknowledgement of false statements to the Office of the Independent Counsel. Concerns about the probative effect of Willey’s testimony would likely be sufficient to negate a conclusion that “the person [charged] probably will be found guilty by an unbiased trier of fact.”

In short, there was insufficient evidence to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that President Clinton’s testimony regarding Kathleen Willey was false. Accordingly, the Independent Counsel declined prosecution and the investigation of potential criminal wrongdoing relating to Willey’s allegations is now closed.

This is the OIC talking here. In short, Kathleen Willey has some serious credibility problems. None of which made it onto Fred's show, of course. In fact, he did say on the show that he believes Kathleen Willey. Ugh.

Fred also made mention of Yassir Arafat "waiting in the Rose Garden" during one of the Clinton/Lewinsky encounters. Uh, not so fast, Fred. This is from the Committee of Concerned Journalists. The CCJ's mission is described here:

The Starr Report differed in some key areas from the Drudge Report. Lewinsky testified to using the cigar sexually and to Clinton then putting it in his mouth and commenting on it. But according to Lewinsky's testimony there was no mutual masturbation and the meeting was in general less sordid than the leaks. There is also no support in the Starr Report for Drudge's allegation that Yassir Arafat was waiting in the Rose Garden when an encounter took place (the Drudge Report is not clear about what encounter it is writing about)[emphasis added]

So Fred was channelling the Drudge Report?? Oh, Fred. You gotta do better than that.

Oh, and Fred also reran the discredited Juanita Broaddrick story.

All in all, standard Fred.

Every now and then it's good to go home.

Memo to P-G Columnists: The Hillary "Southern Drawl" Story's Already Been Debunked

That rowdy pair of conservative columnists (Jack Kelly, Ruth Ann Dailey) over at the P-G have a bad habit of late. They've begun to traffic in already debunked stories.

With Ruth Ann, it was the bogus Pelosi/Plane story. Does she still believe what no one else in the country believes?

With Commando Kelly, well, the most recent incident involved the phrase "slow bleed."

I haven't see the story of Senator Clinton's supposedly faked "southern drawl" yet on the pages of the P-G, so let me take the opportunity to let everyone know it's already been debunked.

It begain, like a lot of fake news, with the drudgereport. Drudge posted this audio a few days ago to show the world the depth of Hillary's pandering: While she's speaking she's adopting a southern drawl in a southern church! She's faking the accent and the southern grammar!

Ah, but if the Devil can be found in the details, Drudge (and large chunks of the right side of the blogosphere) leave out a huge detail. According to Greg Sargent, Clinton was quoting a hymn by James Cleveland:

I don't feel no ways tired,
I've come too far from where I started from.
Nobody told me that the road would be easy,
I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me.

See? The words (and therefore the grammar) aren't hers. It changes the story a scosh, huh?

And when was she ever in the south? I mean, she was born in Chicago, right? Educated at Wellesley and then at Yale, right? Spent 8 years in DC, right? When would she ever have picked up even the hint of a southern accent?

Oh that's right. The 17 years she spent in Arkansas.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no big fan of Clinton's, I'm just trying to save the conservative columnists at the P-G some more embarrassment (as if that's possible). I'll let Sargent have the last word:

Look, Hillary's real sins here were being corny as hell and painfully tone deaf. But phony this wasn't. You'd think that after having so many of their silly tales blow up in their faces these wingers would start checking the facts once in awhile -- if only to stop making themselves look so damn foolish all the time.

Morning, Pittsburgh.