When Facts Get in the Way of a Great Story

Last week a 20 year old white McCain campaign worker claimed she was robbed by a big black man at an ATM in Pittsburgh. According to Ashley Todd, the guy took $60, then noticed a "McCain" bumper sticker on her car. He then knocked her down and carve a letter "B" into her cheek, saying that he would "teach her a lesson" and turn her into an Obama supporter.

Conservative talk radio hosts immediately jumped all over the racial aspect of her tale, and McCain himself called Todd's family to offer his sympathy for what had happened.

This looked like a great story for the McCain campaign, at least until some irresponsible cops actually looked at the surveillance from the ATM machine.... And noticed that there was no big black dude to be seen. So the police called Todd back in for additional questioning. That was when she admitted to making up the whole story. Then, just in case this poor girl hadn't already been through enough, they had the nerve to charge her with filing a false police report.

Boy, narrow-minded bigoted conservative Republicans just can't catch a break these days.