I've been offline much of the day, but yes, the Ashely Todd "mutilation" was, indeed, a hoax. That was clear pretty early on, as there was no plausible explanation for why the "B" was backwards save that this girl had scratched it on her own cheek (as Atrios acidly observed, "Really shoulda gone with the 'O'"). Incidentally, I think the blogosphere deserves some plaudits here, as fairly few people on either side of the aisle jumped the gun. Almost all the liberals I know were picking through the story's implausibility, but waiting for evidence from the police investigation before they said anything publicly. And the situation was similarly restrained on the Right, where even Michelle Malkin was counseling skepticism and restraint. That may be because the whole thing was obviously fraudulent, or it may be because sometimes folks are more mature than we give them credit for. In any case, I don't know of any major blogger who was as publicly irresponsible as Matt Drudge -- whose "reputation" should really be taken out back and shot after this, but who will suffer no sanction whatsoever -- or Fox's John Moody, who said "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." Presumably, the attack would raise questions as to whether Barack Obama spent his evenings skulking around ATM's, carving his initials, Zorro-like, into the cheeks of innocent white women. Or maybe it would raise questions as to the true impacts Barack Obama's tax plan would have on small business. But definitely one of the two! Last point: There's something to be said for the stability America demonstrates during presidential elections. The season has its ugly moments, to be sure, but given the stakes when you're choosing the leader of the world's most powerful country, and given the natural distribution of a fair number of mentally ill and uncommonly cynical individuals amidst a country of 300 million people, the relative rarity of incidents like this one is rather admirable. Todd's plan was, in some ways, an obvious one. Intuiting the possible political impact of reawakening racial fears at the close of a racially charged election does not require a particularly subtle intelligence. But she was an ill individual, and her efforts were transparently fraudulent. It wouldn't take a whole lot of planning, however, for a couple of folks to carry out a similar covert campaign in a much more strategically sophisticated fashion. But by and large, for all the anger and rhetoric and emotional heat, that sort of thing doesn't really seem to happen. Good on ya, America.
