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PITTSBURGH – A McCain campaign volunteer 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, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false and was being charged with making a false report to police, said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department’s investigations division. Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.

I had serious doubts about this story when it first came out, although it was exciting that it happened in a nearby neighborhood. Why would someone beat her up and give her a backwards B on her face? The area she was in is not super-safe, so you would expect her to have either been shot or just robbed. Sometimes robbers will force you to get into the trunk of your car around here, but that is neither here nor there.

Todd, who is white, told police she was attacked by a 6-foot-4 black man Wednesday night. She now can’t explain why she invented the story, Bryant said.

Why 6 foot 4? That’s pretty tall… Oh, I see what you did there.

She said he continued to punch and kick her while threatening “to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter,” police said. She said he then sat on her chest, pinned her hands down with his knees and scratched a backward letter “B” into her face with a dull knife.

I always worry about tall, dyslexic Obama supporters when I am roaming around Pittsburgh. Fortunately, they don’t have any sharp weapons. It’s interesting that in the story the guy didn’t just want to rob her, but he also wanted to make a political statement (and yet he didn’t slash her tires, perhaps because the knife was so dull). I bet everyone at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and KDKA was also loving this story.

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