She made it all up

It was 14 years ago this week when a white South Carolina mother named Susan Smith told police that a menacing black man had carjacked her vehicle and abducted her two young sons. And it was 19 years ago this week when a Boston businessman named Charles Stuart murdered his wife and blamed a menacing black man for the crime he had committed himself.

Maybe it's something about Halloween in October that makes black men such scary targets, but here we go again. Ashley Todd, a 20-year-old white volunteer for John McCain's presidential campaign, told police this week that she was mugged at an ATM machine in Pittsburgh by a tall black man who carved a "B" in her face.

The "B" was supposed to represent Barack Obama, according to the story that was told on Fox News and other conservative media outlets. A spokesperson for the McCain campaign also reportedly spread the rumor that the alleged attacker was a black Obama supporter.

On the surface, it was very troubling, evoking memories of Emmett Till and the Scottsboro Boys and other black men who had been accused of attacking or threatening innocent white women.

But as with Till, the Scottsboro Boys, Charles Stuart and Susan Smith, Ashley Todd's story was also false.

But that revelation came after a Fox News executive predicted that the story, if true, would somehow hurt Obama's presidential bid. In an October 23 blog post, Fox News executive vice president John Moody described the incident in explicit racial terms: "It had to happen. Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it."

Moody predicted the incident "could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election," and argued that the story, if true, would force some voters to "revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists ... but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee." Moody did not explain why the actions of an alleged criminal activity in Pittsburgh would have any relevance to Obama's ability to be president.

But Moody was also even-handed, to an extent. If the story was not true, he said, it could ruin McCain's campaign. "If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting," Moody wrote.