Joe The Mugger Update Update

A hoax. She confesses, according to the cops. One should recall Fox news executive vice-president John Moody's statement:

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

All those who reported or linked to this without some skepticism were race-baiting. But Michelle Malkin deserves kudos for calling this. One more thing about John Moody's remarkable blog posting.

Here's what he wrote before that sentence on race-baiting:

Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator  Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

Just think about that for a moment. Why would a random mugging by a black man of a white victim prompt Americans to "suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee." How does this incident tell us anything about Obama's past or associations? You have to find an association between a Pittsburgh mugger and Obama's organization. No one but a racist of massive proportions could possibly make that inference.

All I can say is that Fox News needs to give more attention to the hoax than it gave to the original story. Ditto Drudge.