The most in-depth story I've found about the Ashley Todd political mugging hoax appeared in today's Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. The reporters did a nice job of contacting some of this troubled young woman's past associations to get a better idea of who she was and why she might have done what she did. She has a history, it seems, of telling lies for political purposes.
But what's most interesting to me is the apparent role of her now-former employer, the College Republican National Committee (and yes, she was a paid Republican operative, not a volunteer).
Yesterday, the College Republicans quickly tossed Todd under the bus:
Ms. Todd's job as a field representative for the College Republican National Committee brought her to Pittsburgh about two weeks ago to recruit college students. She had worked for the committee since August. Yesterday, the organization fired her.
Ashley Barbera, the organization's communications director, said workers initially were concerned for Ms. Todd's safety.
"We are as upset as anyone to learn of her deceit. Ashley must take full responsibility for her actions," she said.
But the friend to whom Todd fled on the night of the fabricated incident, Dan Garcia, was also interviewed for the story, and added some interesting detail. Emphasis mine...
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.
Now I think there's no reason to disbelieve this guy, who was only trying to help, as a friend does, and has since dropped all association with Todd. I think he was a little irresponsible to give photos to anyone but the police, but what is most important is that he admits it.
There is no way the Pittsburgh police, who've shown a great deal of professionalism and sensitivity in their handling of this case, would have passed that picture to the Drudge Report.
Therefore it can only have been the College Republicans who did -- knowing full well that this would insure it would be picked up by the mainstream media, viralized on the Internet, and used by McCain supporters if not the McCain campaign itself to invoke the old American racial bugaboo of black men sexually threatening white women for political purposes.
They are responsible no less than McCain's campaign communications director for pushing this false story -- perhaps more, since a picture is worth a thousand words -- so as to incite racial fears and hatreds for political ends.
Incidentally, that picture didn't raise my suspicions so much because of the backwards "B," but the expression on Todd's face. She doesn't look like someone who has just been violated, threatened and hurt; she looks too calm. Her eyes aren't even red and she has the trace of a smile.
Update: -- more details in a diary published before mine that I didn't spot (apologies to astral66). The picture emerging here, to my mind, is of a pathological liar, a person who lies almost more for the joy and sense of power derived from fooling other people than for other apparent motives -- so that they tend to lie badly and get caught. The police stating that she told one lie after another, and that quote from her MySpace page about lying being the most fun that a girl can have with her clothes on, seem relevant here.