The parallels are striking -- right down to the implausibility of the handwriting:
Tawana Brawley . . . is a African American woman from Wappingers Falls, New York. In 1987 at age 15, she received national media attention in the US for accusing six white men of rape, some of whom were police officers.
Wikipedia
Todd, of College Station, Texas, initially said a black man robbed her at knifepoint Wednesday night and then cut her cheek after seeing a McCain sticker on her car.
Associated Press
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The racial epithets written on [Brawley] were upside down, which led to suspicion that Brawley wrote the words.
Wikipedia
[Todd] told police [her attacker] punched the back of her head, knocked her to the ground and continued punching and kicking her before scratching a backward letter "B" in her right cheek with the knife.
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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The accusations soon earned her notoriety, which was inflamed by Brawley's advisers Reverend Al Sharpton and attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, public officials, and intense media attention.
Wikipedia
The story was flacked madly last night by Drudge, even though few if any details had been established or independently confirmed.
Talking Points Memo
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After hearing evidence, a grand jury concluded in October 1988 that Brawley had not been the victim of a forcible sexual assault and that she herself may have created the appearance of an attack. The New York prosecutor whom Brawley accused as one of her alleged assailants successfully sued Brawley and her three advisers for defamation.
Wikipedia
Pittsburgh police say a volunteer for John McCain's presidential campaign made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter "B'' scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack . . . Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division, says Ashley Todd is being charged with making a false report to police.
Associated Press
It's been 21 years since the Tawana Brawley case, so some kossacks may not remember what a media circus it became -- foreshadowing (farce before tragedy in that particular case) the first O.J. Simpson trial.
Yet another weird coincidence: The Brawley story broke in November of 1987, immediately after the last big Wall Street crash.
Suffice it to say that among its other nasty side effects, the spectacle turned Al Sharpton a household name. It also revealed the utter absurdity that some on the post-modern left are capable of. I distinctly remember one professor earnestly telling me that even if Tawana's story was false, it was still a crime because it represented the "mythic" truth of what had been done to African American women in America.
A legal standard that would, admittedly, make for some pretty interesting "mythic" trials.
As nutty as the reaction in some corners of the far left was, the reaction on the far right (which is to say, among mainstream conservative pundits) was even worse -- with Brawley and her advocates becoming the proof points for every claptrap racial theory ever peddled by conservative "scholars" such as the AEI's Charles Murray.
No doubt those same pundits and scholars will now explain to us that Ms. Todd's fairy tale was a typical product of the "social pathology" of the Caucasian American community, one which has left white conservatives in the grip of an irrational persecution complex -- providing them with a ready-made excuse for their own failures (such as their subaverage IQs).
And no doubt Drudge and the conservative bloggers who jumped on this story as soon as it surfaced will be condemned by the corporate media -- as Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were two decades ago -- as racial ambulance chasers exploiting the fear and ignorance of their followers to promote their own ambitions.
No doubt.
Personally, I'm just waiting for the first right-wing wacko blogger to make the argument that even if Todd did lie, her story was "mythically" true because it represents the real life experience of so many delicate blossoms of young Caucasian womanhood.
Given the mental and emotional similarities between the "post-modern" left and the "pre-rational" right, I suspect it's only a matter of time.
Update 4:00 PM ET: For an example of the utter intellectual vacuity and moral squalor of the corporate media, take a look at the reaction to Todd's confession from Politico's Jonathan Martin, who was one of the first (pace Drudge) to start hyping the story last night:
"Seems like McCain just can't catch a break."
I guess Drudge doesn't just rule their world -- he owns their pitiful souls as well.