WS reporter gets shoved by Coakley aide, AP says reporter “stumbled”

Laughable:

BOSTONβ€”A reporter trying to question Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley was involved in a scuffle with one of her aides.

John McCormack of the Weekly Standard fell Tuesday night as he tried to speak with the Democrat while simultaneously videotaping her and trying to pass a metal grate on a Washington sidewalk.

Photos and video of the incident show Coakley aide Michael Meehan trying to help McCormack up. A scuffle broke out as Meehan tried to block McCormack and determine if he was an operative of a rival campaign.

Here’s the screencap:

AP headling

Now, watch the video of what happened and view the photo – which shows Martha Coakley witnessing what happened. Does that look like a “stumble” or a “fall” to you?

McCormack’s account of what happened is here.

Of course, the DSCC is calling the video a “dirty trick” – implying that McCormack wasn’t shoved to the ground, but I wonder how both they and the AP will square away their ‘official statement’ on the matter with the fact that the staffer, Michael Meehan – an Obama appointee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors – actually did the right thing and called McCormack today to apologize?

If you’ve got a couple of minutes, please email the AP and ask them to correct their “reporting” of this incident.

What Does This All Mean for the Coakley campaign in terms of any potential negative impact? My prediction is not much, esp. amongst the diehard Dems in MA. But one thing that has been rather interesting about all this is the contrast between the reactions from the far left now versus how they went absolutely ape-sh*t when uber left wing nutcase Mike Stark was “attacked” by George Allen staffers for trying to get too close to the former Senator after a 2006 campaign stop – even though Stark himself had a notorious history of stalking and harassing politicians beyond the point of just being a “concerned citizen” and in spite of the fact that just a few minutes prior Stark shoved a man into a doorframe to get past him in order to follow George Allen to another part of the hotel they were both in so he could interrupt a press event in order to demand answers about sealed divorce records of Allen’s from 22 years ago. Stark was arrested shortly thereafter, but not before yelling out, “I’ll own this town.” To date, he still doesn’t own it.

Most of the far left’s reax to the Meehan/McCormack incident has been to mumble somthing about it being wrong, being thankful an apology was issued, and being desirous to move on. Fine by me, as I don’t think this incident – nor the Allen incident – were indications of who the candidates were and what they were all about but, again, it’s interesting to study the contrasts here as there have been no insinuations far and wide about how the incident shows that Coakley is unfit for the Senate, that it is a strong indication that Coakley doesn’t support free speech, etc – which is the exact opposite of what we heard from them after the George Allen dust-up was reported.

Then again, this is the far left we’re talking about here. Consistency isn’t exactly their strong point.

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