Wow. Didn’t see this coming.

Yesterday: FOX News VP John Moody said that “If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”

Today: Police: McCain volunteer made up robbery story.

There you have it, in black and white (as it were). But still, McCain? Race-baiting? I declare, I just might faint.

*ahem* The George Wallace McCain camp issued an official statement yesterday, before Ashley Todd confessed, saying, “We’re shaken up by this. It’s sick and disgusting.” However, while it was important for Jesse Helms McCain to get these sympathetic and responsible words to the press, it apparently wasn’t all that important that Lester Maddox’s McCain’s Straight-Talkin’ Maverick Express get the word out to, you know, his own campaign mouthpieces. While everybody with an ounce of perspective was calling bullshit (and I mean this literally – within two hours I had seen the woman’s story picked apart about ten different ways), Strom Thurmond’s McCain’s PA campaign comm director was out in front of the press pimping this little minstrel show like a monkey on crack.

Oops.

We have historically taken the FOX News claim to “fair and balanced” with a measure of skepticism, but today, at least, they have stepped to the plate, knocked the mud off their cleats and smacked a belt-high gopherball into the parking lot.

We salute FOX News and look forward to eight more years of honest, good faith journalism from them.