All you need is a lipliner pencil and some dark gray eyeshadow.

And you've got a funny, ultra-easy Halloween costume.

"PITTSBURGH MUTILATION INCIDENT A FAKE, according to police. Advantage: Ann Althouse and Michelle Malkin!"

Writes Glenn Reynolds, linking back to his post from last night, where he said that I was "joining the crowd suspecting a hoax."

Isn't it interesting that the women smelled the hoax while the men were such respectful believers? I guess you men have been well schooled in your gender studies classes. Let me quote something I said in the comments to my "Ashley Todd confessed" post:

This idea of believing women -- which got started in an era when too many real rape accusations were rejected -- should not become a leap of faith. Look critically at the evidence. The best version of feminism treats women as human beings, and human beings are capable of lying and doing vicious things. Don't be a chump.

Police say Ashley Todd has confessed to faking the story that an enraged black man carved a "B" for Barack into her face.

She will be charged for filing a fake report.

Police spokeswoman Diane Richard ... said Todd said on Friday she wasn't sure if it was a bumper sticker on her car or a campaign button on her jacket that angered the attacker. Richard said Todd added new details to the attack, saying at one point she lost consciousness.

"She also indicated she was sexually assaulted as well. She indicated that when he had her on the ground he put his hand up her blouse and started fondling her. But other than that, she says she doesn't remember anything else. So we're adding a sexual assault to this as well," Richard said.

Police said they gave a polygraph test to Todd, but they didn't release the results.

I'm glad this got cleared up so quickly, and I hope people learn a few lessons from this. As I said here and here, it always looked fake to me.

AND: Making the fake assailant black and then throwing in the sexual assault makes thing truly vile. 

Looks hoaxy to me.

Come on, people. First, verify. I've seen the photograph, and, quite aside from the backwards "B" -- does the surveillance camera show an upside down attack? -- the scratching looks too even and shallow to seem like the result of a violent attack.

And even if it did happen, what would it mean? There are violent attacks all the time, for all sorts of reasons, and if you want to assert that they say something about anybody other than the attacker, you'll need to prove that too.

Bottom line: This is the stupidest distraction in the whole history of this crazy campaign season.

ADDED: I have a bit more to say here.

UPDATE. Told ya. Fake.