Drudge giveth, and Drudge taketh away
By now most of you have heard that the 20-year-old McCain volunteer who said yesterday that she was robbed at a Pittsburgh ATM machine and then had a "B" carved into her face by the assailant -- supposedly reacting to a McCain for prez bumper sticker on her car -- made the whole thing up.
No 6'4" black attacker, no robbery, no assault. No rallying cry for a campaign.
A sad story, of course, but let's face it: Out of the thousands of campaign volunteers and millions of highly partisan followers in this election, odds are that at least a few are going to crack up before it's over. You can't use this incident to generalize about McCain followers any more than you could blame a pro-Obama volunteer for a similar isolated incident.
What's unconscionable, though, is the way that Matt Druge pushed this woman's story to the top of the news cycle by trumpeting her story on his top-read Web site. Then it was followed by such "respectable" sites as Politico.com, which were soon blaring the story as well. Politico got around the thinness of the story by attributing it to -- you guessed it -- Drudge! Then other sites picked up the Politico story, and so on, and you can see how in a matter of hours this unknown woman was suddenly the most famous "B"-emblazoned personality in the country.
Now that the story has been debunked, we didn't get so much as an apology from Politico. (But it did run a follow-up story saying it was fake.) I wouldn't expect one from Drudge, who managed to sensationalize the story even more by publishing a big photo with the headline "SHE MADE IT UP!"
And all this took place in a matter of hours. As the Internet becomes ever more pervasive, our world just keeps getting faster.
Comments:
I appreciate one of the left-leaning sites I read withholding judgement on the story and making the same argument that you did.
Obviously this woman has her own personal problems and they most certainly don't represent anything having to do with politics or this political cycle.
Posted by: adam at October 24, 2008 3:15 PM
I love how her black eye is so, well, black. Black eyes are typically blue, green and purple. Never black. I'm surprised no one called her on that!
Posted by: MsJoey at October 24, 2008 3:30 PM
Not to mention the backwards "B" ... Shame on the repub pundits for jumping all over this, and obviously any retractions will be "back page bottom" material.
Posted by: cjl at October 24, 2008 3:46 PM
I keep waiting for the reactionary villagers with the pitch forks and the torches to take OVER this country.
......oh yeah, they did...for the last 8 years.
Let's see if we can do things a little more intelligently
for the next few years, eh?
Posted by: blake at October 24, 2008 4:22 PM
Yeah. I pretty much called this one the minute I saw the photo. That black eye is totally fake. But I saw it on a "reputable" news source, "Goodmorning America," or some such. I think they prefaced with "allegedly," but still.
Posted by: Famous at October 24, 2008 4:37 PM
These folks are giving 'fanatics' a bad name.
I sorta always figured this would be something a Ron Paul Hardcore would do...
(maybe)
a stoned 'bama supporter,
---but I had no idea that McCain had anybody THIS into him...(I mean, the guy is about as charasmatic and motivational as a pair of tightie-whities with shot elastic.)
(... now this twit just upped the ante and we're going to be knee deep in immolations by election day... greaaaaaaat.)
I'm just going to watch Bob Roberts a few times and hope for the best, (Tim Robbins characture of the Dylan Classic is spot-on.)
Posted by: wet towel at October 24, 2008 4:41 PM
You can thank your Democratic Party for the current financial crisis.
The Democratic Party(through Democratic dominated organizations such as ACORN, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac and Democratic inspired laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act) intimidated banks into lending money to poor minorities and whites who could not possibly pay the money back.
The resulting bad loans were packaged into mortgage securities which(since they were based on fraudulent loans) had no significant value.
It is no accident Obama and Dodd are the top two recipients of Fannie Mae campaign contributions and that Obama chose Jim Johnson(former Fannie Mae executive) to select his vice presidential nominee. It is no accident Obama represented ACORN and that he and Ayers donated to ACORN while they were on boards together. It is no accident Democrats such as Frank, Dodd, Reid, Pelosi and Obama did not join John McCain when John McCain called for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005. It is no accident Democrats like Obama, Dodd, Reid, Pelosi, and Frank resisted President Bush’s calls for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Don’t buy Obama’s demagogic claim Bush “deregulation” caused the current crisis! There was little financial “deregulation” under Bush and Gramm Leach Bliley(1999) was not only under Clinton but, by its breaking down of barriers between commercial and investment banks, has helped to alleviate the current crisis by facilitating recent mergers between commercial and investment banks. The media and Obama can cover up the above truths but the above truths can not legitimately be denied. The current crisis is directly traceable to your Democratic Party
Posted by: Liberty11 at October 24, 2008 9:27 PM
Liberty 11:
I agree with you wholeheartedly, but this is not the subject they're talking about here, it's about a woman who was looking to make headlines, and the always "reliable" Matt Drudge ran with the story without checking the facts. It's amazing how my base accuses drive-bys of running with stories without checking facts, and yet Drudge does the same. Maybe this country should be known as WHO DO YOU TRUST?
Posted by: Abel E. Jimenez at October 25, 2008 6:57 PM
Was the last post cut-pasted from somewhere? (It has absolutely nothing to do with the current topic). You can blame who you like, but the financial crisis was due mostly to greed and a quick buck on the short-term and MANY MANY MANY businesses were guilty of it, and continue to be. These companies we're bailing out have no business conducting "business" in this country.
Posted by: cjl at October 25, 2008 9:20 PM
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