The last thing Presidential candidate John McCain needs is another negative news story attached to his name, with just a few days left to build enough momentum to win the 2008 election.

The past week has been particularly challenging for the McCain camp.  The candidate’s brother’s 911 calls were released, in which he called the emergency number to complain about stalled traffic.  Running mate Sarah Palin and her hubby had to give a deposition, regarding the "Troopergate" incident.

Now, to top things off, a college student, who was a GOP campaign volunteer, has caused further angst for John McCain.  The 20-year-old told Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania cops that she was attacked by a 6-foot-4, African-American male Obama supporter, while at an ATM machine.  She allegedly told them that he had robbed her at knife-point and had also injured her cheek, cutting a backwards "B" into it, while berating her for supporting John McCain.

Of course, some Republicans and conservative news outlets, desperate to connect the name of Barack Obama to something horrendous, must have felt, for awhile, practically empowered by this news, hoping to cash in on the paranoia of the bigoted and uninformed.

The trouble is that their attempts to transform this news into a means of race-baiting may have been somewhat premature.  It turns out that the young woman, who has a history of mental health issues, made the whole thing up, confessing to cops that her story was bogus.

She has now been arrested.

It will be interesting to see if Fox News and other like-minded, conservative news purveyors will be as quick to report the fact that this story was a hoax, as they were to announce the original item.

If John McCain’s supporters really want to help him, then they need to stop these desperate attempts to manipulate unfounded racial fears and get the focus, instead, on his policies to help fix the ills of this land.

That’s what we really need to hear.

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