Dem Staffer Apologizes For Shoving Weekly Standard Reporter
As you may have heard, a Dem staffer helping the Martha Coakley campaign was caught on video shoving a Weekly Standard reporter, prompting an explosion of outrage from national Republicans and the right-wing media, who alleged bullying and intimidation.
Now the staffer, Michael Meehan, sends over a statement admitting error (though not conceding bullying) and saying he also apologized directly to the Standard reporter, John McCormack:
Last evening I was a little too aggressive in the confusion of trying to help the Attorney General get to her car and catch a flight.
I clearly did not intend to cause John McCormack to trip and fall over that low fence. As the video shows and he confirms in his blog, I stopped to help him up and make sure he was OK.
I talked with Mr. McCormack this afternoon and apologized for my part.
The question now is whether this remains an issue in the closing days of the white hot Massachusetts race. National Republicans have been hammering Dem candidate Martha Coakley today, demanding an apology, and it’s been lighting up talk radio all day today.
So you have to assume that even if McCormack accepts the apology — and I’m told he is going to — the national GOP and right-wing media will continue savaging Coakley over it.
Update: A Dem gets in touch to remind me that McCormack had a similar dust-up with Dede Scozzafava — and that he even had the cops called on him over it.
Update II: More on Massachusetts: Vicki Kennedy sends out a fundraising email for Coakley that raises $350,000 in three hours.
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orion, your legal analysis is, shall we say, interesting. rightwingers always carp about personal responsibility, what about mccormack’s responsibility for participating in the shoving match?
JohnO,
I’m in full agreement that “it *is * part of staffers’ jobs to keep people who appear to be hostile away from pols. it happens everyday and if you never voted for a pol whose staff did this, you would never be able to vote for anyone.”
I am *not* in full agreement that McCormack appeared to be hostile because it does not appear that way in the video, nor am I in agreement that Meehan let him go when he said it was a reporter. Did you not hear Meehan saying “Where?” and or see him grabbing at McCormack’s ID Badge? While Meehan kept his voice polite, his actions were not. This was why my original comment started out with this:
You know, my copy of the Constitution must be outdated: apparently my copy left out the “with the correct identification papers” clause after the “freedom of speech, or of the press” line.
You said, “nony, you’re premise that mccormack was innocently trying to ask a ‘legit’ question is mistaken.” On what basis, ’cause that’s what it looks like the vid shows to me?
nony, mccormack doesn’t appear clearly in the video until he is already down. mccormack himself said he asked coakley questions after he id’d himself. do you think he lied?
based on the fact that meehan did stop blocking him after he id’d himself, i accept his claim that he initially blocked him because he did not id himself.
and please don’t be pedantic — i nowhere said he had to have papers. either you agree that staffers legitimately restrain possibly hostile people or you don’t. you seem to want to acknowledge that they do do this legitimately and then condemn him for doing so.
JohnO,
I’ll grant you that Scozzofava had an R after her name, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say “conservative” with her politics. And I think they’re bringing that up to burnish the “he’s not a Republican political hack” credentials.
typical responses, pooh-poohing the significance, dry cleaning bills, and then of course the ol dodge by bringing up a completely unrelated topic, dead soldiers in iraq. sorry, the iraq war and a dry cleaning bill have have nothing to do with a democratic operative assaulting a reporter who happens to work for an opposition news agency. talk about a complete lack of respect for the rule of law! talk about completely missing the point completely, that so-called “viruous violence” is simply violence.
Demcrats have no respect for this country, or the rule of law. worse yet, because they HATE anyone who disagrees with them politically, they feel that they have the moral upper hand which excuses thier breech of decency.
Absolutely disgusting. coakley should be sued along with this thug. period.
scozzafava is at least center right, and we can debate whether that is conservative or not, but she certainly isn’t a liberal, as ‘real’ american asserted. and he clearly claimed she was a liberal to trash liberals. but maybe some of the others who mentioned her upthread did so for the reason you propose.
magpie, you are a study in projection.
Both incidents show the complete thuggery of liberals.
I am a Republican and just retired from the military after 26 years..I now have freedom of speech..
Football-why are people so into watching guys tackle each other.
Gotta love the USA…what have you done for your country today…
“Both incidents show the complete thuggery of liberals.”
I wish you people would make up your minds. First progressives are big pansies because we don’t want to torture people and now we’re thugs because some reporter ripped a whole in his pants. Jeez.
JohnO,
The reason that this is a big deal is that while most people will agree that staffers can restrain hostile people, they should not restrain, body-check, bully, shove, or demand employer ID badges from *non*hostile people. You didn’t say he had to show papers. Unless you’re really Meehan… (j/k I’m not that big on conspiracy theories). Only after it was clear that this was going to be a press incident and the only question was ‘how bad is this going to make us look’ yeah, he got to ask his questions. But that chain of events is *not* okay. Arianna Huffington should not have to try to convince a staffer to look up HuffPo on line, before she’s allowed to ask Cantor a question when he’s answering other people’s questions. Even if it’s one he doesn’t like.
p.s.
It’s difficult to see at first because the camera angle isn’t steady (darn life not having a script), but you can see him in the left part of the screen in the video. His question isn’t understandable in that clip, but he does not appear to be hostile, just asking a question. You can see someone move into him from the right.
Mark,
95% of all politicians give the rest a bad name.
(no, it’s not restricted to the party designation)
Sweet baby Jeebus….this is ridiculous. It was an incident that never should have happened….the guy apologized….apology accepted. End of story.
It’s not Bloody Sunday or Tiannamen Square, and McCormack is not Aung San Suu Kyi. Take a deep breath, turn off Fox news, and go for walk.
nony, okay, i think you are making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about meehan’s motivation. how exactly do you know he let mccormack ask his questions only in the interest of damage control? that is one hell of a leap. meehan certainly didn’t ‘body check’ him. they were in a pushing match, and i’d say mccormack bears just as much responsibility for that as meeham.
mccormack tripped over the fence. if there was no fence, he would not have ended up on the ground. reporters have a right to be aggressive and try to get around a protective staffer, but when they trip over a fence in the process they shouldn’t whine about thuggery.
Ethan and Tena are just two more examples of the vacuousness of the Left. If a concept can’t be summed up on a bumpersticker they can’t understand it. Yes, Ethan and Tena, no cause for being concerned about our government officials using thugs to keep push the people and the non-pliant press around. Why, there’s an earthquake in Haiti!! We can only be concerned about one thing at a time.
You guys are laughable in your stupidity and pitiful in your vileness.
JohnO,
Two reasons. One is that I still can’t find any evidence that McCormack was doing anything but asking a legit question on a public street to a candidate for high office in a non threatening manner. Though you tell me I’m mistaken, you’re not pointing me to that evidence. The other? It’s a habit I’ve gotten into: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity; never attribute to charity that which can be explained by damage control and butt covering. There’s a whole long story involving several different agencies that ‘done me wrong’ only to “graciously credit” me after it was obvious I had proof and was fully prepared to find a wider audience, but it’s not germane.
I have not claimed to have any idea what was or was not going on in Meehan’s mind, but I don’t particularly care for his actions which do not seemed to be called for in the situation and would be rather irritated for them to be used in the future to excuse bad behavior by other staffers, D or R.
SchrodingersCat,
I was in Tiannamen Square within six months after the protest happened. While I don’t trust either political party, I will tell you that what we got here is worlds better than there.
JohnO: “orion, your legal analysis is, shall we say, interesting. rightwingers always carp about personal responsibility, what about mccormack’s responsibility for participating in the shoving match?”
What shoving match are you talking about? Takes 2 people “shoving” to have a shoving “match”. Battery only requires one person to stand there and the other person to shove him. “Personal responsibility” does not mean Mr. McCormick take responsibility for Mr. Meehan’s illegal act.
Epic FAIL at sophmorism, btw.
Again:
I watched the tape and McCormack appeared to trip and fall all by himself and then the candidate’s supporter is seen helping the guy up, asking him if he was okay, and then getting into an argument with him.
Considering that John McCormack, one of Communist Chinese appeasing Rupert Murdoch’s thugs, is known for stalking and harassing those on the left, it looked like he was getting back what he was putting out into the world.
Moreover, considering that Republican Scott Brown has allied himself with the proto-violent teabagger brigade, keeping track of right wingers harassing Dem candidates is increasingly important.
And of course the standard that right wingers hold others to is never the standard they hold themselves to:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Brooks+Brothers+Riot
Those Republican Brooks Brothers Rioters were coordinated by the National Republican Leadership to terrorize a small community into not counting American’s votes.
Let’s hear the right wingers start holding their side to the standards they hold others to.
Republican Scott Brown is a LIAR.
Republican Scott Brown FALSELY claimed he wasn’t familiar with the right wing extremist teabagger movement.
Photographic evidence and now VIDEO evidence has popped up that Republican Scott Brown OFFICIALLY SPOKE at one the teabaggers rallies:
“Brown Says He’s Unfamiliar with Tea Partiers;
Campaign Pix Say Otherwise.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/brown-says-hes-unfamiliar-with-tea-partiers-pictures-say-otherwise.php
Republican Scott Brown is a LIAR.
Right on Meehan. Republicans have always been the unapologetic aggresors in this country- We Democrats are finally showing guts and moxy. Good Slam big M.
nony,
we’ll just have to disagree about mccormack being hostile and meehan’s actions being justifiable. and i’ll just note that in fact you actually do ascribe a particular motivation, damage control, to meehan’s actions.
orion, you are either willfully deluding yourself or are exceedingly dense. either way, you should be the last person on earth slinging accusations of “epic fail sophmorism” (sic).
news reference,
you make the mistake of thinking rightwing republicans will hold themselves to the same standard they apply to others. they have no intention of doing any such thing.
and it’s fine for brown to blatantly and poorly lie about being a secret teabagger. republicans can lie all they want and they’re still better than democrats.
Rather odd, isn’t it that the same reporter (John McCormack from the Weekly Standard) had a similar situation w/ Dede Scozzafava. That time, the police were called on him. Coakley’s staff repeatedly asked McCormack to identify himself. He refused. In addition he refused to show his press card. McCormack appeared in aggresive pursuit of McCormack. He also fell…..he was not pushed. Coakley’s staff member can clearly be heard at the end of the video requesting that McCormack identify himself.
Why has McCormack been involved in two of these incidents? What is the agenda of The Weekly Standard?
“What is the agenda of The Weekly Standard?”
The same agenda as all of
Communist Chinese dictatorship appeasing Rupert Murdoch’s media holdings: Acquisition of Power and Money without loyalty to country or principles.
Murdoch’s thugs are becoming increasingly belligerent and hostile: Stalking American citizens, and then acting like they are they victims when they are stood up to.
Murdoch’s thugs include murder fantasist Glenn Beck who has actively fantasized about murdering Americans while he’s on the air, Bill O’Reilly who encouraged a terrorist attack on an American city, and a growing number of creepy stalkers (John McCormack and Jesse Waters two of the more flagrant stalkers paid by Rupert Murdoch).
For more background on “Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism”, watch: OUTFOXED:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428
As always lots of whine from the right, no real issues to debate. I see the anti-christ was just hired by faux news, you should be celebrating!!!
JUST KEEP PUSHIHG!!!!
Like the recent earthquake in Haiti, tectonic movement is a reaction to pressure built up over time. The half of the population paying is getting fed up with the half that is mooching, and the liberal/socialists keep pushing. They better watch out for the earthquake!
Did Gerry Studds know how to teabag? Does Barney Frank still have teabagging parties at his house? Is Ted in heaven with Mary Jo?
“, prompting an explosion of outrage from national Republicans and the right-wing media”
Sooo that means that the Left wing MSM and most Dems are ok with this?
I have never been more ashamed of MY party then now.. we have turned into a worse lot than the last Admin!
Just out of curiosity, do you ever use the expression “left-wing media”? Or is there no such animal?
The Scozzafava comment is a red herring. McCormack had recorded proof that he was asking questions in measured tones. Scozzafava’s union thug husband called the local police/sheriff in an apparant attempt to intimidate the press.
Nazi brownshirts appear to have been replaced by Brooks Brothers attired goons such as Mr. Meehan based on a Youtube video which seeems to be more informative than this fluff piece of journalism. The AP’s reporting is pretty hamhanded of the obvious assault of McCormack by Meehan on the behalf of the lobbyist seeking Coakley … the AP reporter is too ashamed to put his name on the this drivel.
Wait until one of the Obama or Coakley goons try to intimidate YOUR reporters.
The contested MA Senate seat is the people’s seat.
Teddy’s seat is a barstool (right next to Christopher Dodd)
Quo warranto, B.O.?
When right wingers bring up “Nazis” it’s important to note that
Republicans were collaborating with Nazis and that Republican Bush’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator:
“How [Republican] Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
Republican Bush’s grandfather was Trading with the [Nazi] Enemy “even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis’ plans and policies, he [Republican Bush's grandfather] worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler’s rise to power.”
that’s all right