Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

Put a fork in her, she's done. (er, that's a figure of speech of course, we on the right don't condone violence.)

I just read about this at Hot Air and was going to leave a link in your comment section.

This needs to go viral in MA.

This comment has been removed by the author.

Thugs.

My former party is rife with them.

There is nothing else to say.

Par for the course, no?

She's a thug. What else is new?

the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of MA witnessed an assault. I do believe she will make an excellent witness in the criminal/civil trials to come.

It's not just that she was a candidate watching that with indifference; she's the Attorney General of Massachusetts. So much for that whole "chief law-enforcement officer" thing. . . .

How much media/campaign coverage is this getting?

American Power tracked-back with, 'Martha Coakley Ducks Question on Taliban 'Gone' From Afghanistan'.

I wonder where that thug go the "SEIU PURPLE" sweater he's wearing.

Just curious, ya know?

In the picture, it looks like the guy was trying to help the journalist up, but the journalist claims that the guy kept shoving him after helping up, and keeping him from asking the AG a question.

It's a mistake to let the "violence" of this incident become the main focus of the story. The reporter was chasing Coakley down the street, a Coakley guy ran interference, he fell, the guy helped him up, then the guy continued to run interference.

Not exactly an out-and-out beat-down that alone will raise the ire of disinterested observers. And if that is presented as "the story" here people will move on pretty quick. People don't necessarily take the reporter's side in this day and age of Perez Hilton, especially when it's a dark and confused situation on a city street.

What I think is more damning and deserves the greater focus is where they were coming from (the lobbyist fundraiser) and the reason why Team Coakley felt the need to run interference against the press.

Don't let a little street action become the "story" here. You'll be letting Coakley off the hook.

I think you miss the point. Coakley WITNESSED the encounter. Even if you look at it as "running interference", she did NOTHING when a bystander was knocked to the ground by someone in her entourage.

She didn't have to whisk out a badge and arrest her guy on the spot. But, at minimum, she should have shown concern for the man lying on the ground.

As a former Bostonian who was involved in MA politics, I can assure you that politics is a bare-knuckle business. This was a mild example noted not for the level of violence but as Mr. Jacobsen notes, for the blase reaction by Coakley. It suggests that she is comfortable with violence.

Most of the worst people I have ever met in my life were from when I was involved in politics. Many of the candidates, particularly in local big city politics, are bad enough but most of the people who "make the system work" should be in prison. In fact, several of the people I worked for/with ARE in prison.

Coakley has no legal jurisdiction in DC. The picture only shows her after the man fell. The reporter "took a dive."

Back and forth accusations and defenses of this will obscure the story to Coakley's advantage.

As far as Scott Brown's election is concerned, there is no gain in allowing these contretemps to swallow the real story here of Coakley's priorities, associations and allegences.

Possible headline?

"Media Message Mercenary, Michael Meehan, Manifestly Makes "Marauding" Martha's Massachusetts Mobilization Meme" . . .

The Attorney General is the chief lawyer and law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As such she represents the Commonwealth in many matters which the Commonwealth is a party.

Quote from the Attorney General's official website.

Facts are this....if the reporter had done to Coakley what the Thug did to the reporter, the reporter would be sitting in a jail cell.

Where I come from, aggressive body-checking, impeding someone on a public street and physical intimidation are all illegal.

And Coakley just stands there gape-mouthed. World-class instincts lady.

The more the pressure on the Left is turned up, the more they resort to intolerable measures (bribery, closed-door negotiations, the threat of a delay in seating the 41st Republican Senator if he wins, and now this). We are fighting for the preservation of the country we grew up in.

Obviously Martha Coakley is in way over her head.   Then again, most pols these days are for that matter in the game for all the wrong reasons.   But again in the majority of cases these pols STILL get elected with much help from special interest groups.   Oh well, hopefully the Mass (no extra 'e') voters will take a stand for issues that really matter?   Like Liberty as defined by our US Constitution, for starters.

Gee, maybe they thought this was a voter "Stimulus" situation, and that John McCormack was a "Shover - Ready" project.

The Boston Herald also has a story:

"Reporter roughed up outside Coakley fund-raiser"

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20100113reporter_martha_coakley_aide_scuffle/srvc=home&position=0

Help! I'm being oppressed!

Rush said that there's video showing what happened, but that the print media is citing the still image to claim the reporter fell, whereas the video shows him being assaulted. Let's hope enough Bay state voters see the video to exceed the margin of theft engineered by ACORN, et al.

While I don't think focusing on the "violence" of incident should be elevated to the "takeaway story" of last night's events in DC, I don't mean to say that Coakley can't be zinged with this incident.

For example: Coakley says she is against "self help" -- that's why she hires goons.

(Coakley went to record as being against people resorting to "self-help" after a father interceded physically when a stranger grabbed his son in a public rest room.)

Doggone right this should go viral.

http://danielmcandrew.com

The pusher has just lost his job for not pushing more discreetly, for forgetting deniability, for letting that guy even opened his mouth to ask questions.

First order of business: ban Youtube, second: ban filming, third: ban asking questions.

These people put aremed Black Panthers at polling stations in the general election and they did it with impunity. Hands up all who are surprised that the Democrat party is run by thugs.

KitKat, 12:09 PM: good catch on the Boston Herald story!

At the end of the story, as you no doubt noted, both the campaign and Meehan were caught in "no comment, no message returned" trap.

Poor Martha!

When she signed up as the unquestioning cheerleader for the President's healthcare bill, little did she suspect that she would be required to actually pick up her pom-poms and begin chanting one of the "old standards!"

But, as I listen to the video, I think maybe I can hear her voice intoning in the background . . . can you hear it?

"Push 'em back, shove 'em back, waaaaaaay back!"

No?

How appropriate. Check out the Blue Line Strategic Communications logo: the "L" in Line is shaped like a hockey stick, and the "i" appears to be dotted by a puck: http://bluelinesc.com

Perhaps a hockey game will break out in Coakley's campaign.

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8CdfQGlgVw

did any tv network or any mass newspaper (globe or herald) cover this?

Oh, my. Michael Meehan is part of the Obama Administration. He serves on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (h/t to Free Republic):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts-111809

UPDATE: HEY DID!

SORT OF...

Reporter takes stumble chasing Mass. candidate

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/13/reporter_takes_stumble_chasing_mass_candidate/

In that video the thug places his hand on the shoulder of the reporter from behind, and attempts to restrain him from approaching Coakley. It's not clear to me why the reporter fell but it does look like said "thug" had his hands on the reporter and, if he didn't push him, was strongly urging him in a direction away from Coakley when the reporter collided wiht a temporary barricade and went down. After that point, the "thug" helps the reporter up, asks him if he's okay, and actively prevents him from proceeding down the street to follow Coakley.

As I understand it, any hands-on contact or restraint is "assault". If you were to do this to a police officer, you'd be in cuffs so quick it would make your head spin. The reporter clearly has his hands up and is making an effort to not make contact with the "thug".

Is it wrong? Yes. Will anything come of it in a lawsuit? Probably not.

Coakley's still going to win. Get over it.

Is this what Obama's promised. Just a little intimidation at the polling places, just a little assault and battery if you don't like it, just a little voter fraud and finally maybe a suspension of your civil rights because he knows better than you? Can you believe that the Democrats might be some one to fear, that they just might do something irreversible and ruin the freedoms of the United States. Hard to believe that the whole Democrat/Socialist party has seemed to have gone illiberal and a little crazy.

As evidenced by Meehan's snazzy shirt, it appears that blue is the new brown.

Coakley's still going to win. Get over it.

Hahahaha!

Is that pee I smell?

People need to remember this is the court of public opinion vis-a-vis undecided voters and dormant Democrats, not a court of law.

Heck, Jane Hampsher of FireDogLake is against Obamacare because she's been following what's happening. Even people as left wing as her in Mass, if they knew what Coakley was up to last night, still probably would never vote for Brown (where most undecideds probably would), but those Dems may not be as excited to vote for Coakley. And turn-out will be key on Tues.

Don't turn this into a "shoving" match.

Unless you can keep this issue tethered to what Coakley was up to that night and WHY she didn't want to speak to the reporters, Meehan will have succeeded in what he was trying to do. He'll be dismissed by the Coakley campaign, deflecting attention from Coakley and thereby shielding Coakley from scrutiny, and be celebrated as a hero later by Democrats in private.

Reliapundit, January 13, 2010 1:54 PM, as KitKat noted above, Laura Crimaldi of the Boston Herald posted a pretty damn decent story, which can be found here.

Not a bad header, either:

"Reporter roughed up outside Coakley fund-raiser."

And she got "no comment" responses from both the Coakley campaign, and the alleged assailant, DSCC media whizzer, Michael Meahan.

Also, it's being played big-time on Fox, as it should be.

"Weekly Standard Reporter Attacked Outside of Democratic Fundraiser."

I warned you. Now Coakley is framing the issue of what transpired last night in terms of:

“I do know that the Scott Brown stalkers who have followed me around and the people at that press conference ... were incredibly aggressive about trying to get in my face,” Coakley said. “I didn’t see what happened so I can’t say.”

Maybe Coakley's spin will fly, maybe it won't. But now we're talking about "Brown stalkers," not Coakley lobbyists.

But if you couldn't see that judo coming, you shouldn't be playing in the big league.

Please, let Scott Brown decide how he wants to run his campaign.

My human sympaties are on the side of Coakley against the paparazzi. Also, this is assault and battery? What Democrat thugs of SEIU did to Ken Gladney was assault and battery. This is not! At least Prof. Jacobson was careful not to use the word "battery", heh.

This incident sums up perfectly what a witless hack Coakley is:

-- She's coming out of a fat cat lobbyist fundraiser in DC a wekk before the election;

-- She can't or won't answer a reporter's question about Afghanistan, an issue about which any Senate candidate ought to be able to parry any question by any journalist, however antagonistically put;

-- She and/or her campaign teeam are so afraid of an exchange with a Weekly Standard guy that this Meehan guy jumps in to play goon and body blocks the reporter, demands his press credentials even though they're on the public street, knocks him down and then blocks his way again to allow Coakley to escape;

-- When the Standard guy catches up with her anyway, she brushes him off, saying "we'e finished," as if to drum into everyone's head that she approves of Meehan's conduct and simply can't answer basic candidate questions.

For this mess, she needed an alleged "communications" professional, Meehan, lent to her by the DSCC?

Here's a communications tip for Coakley that I'm lending her free of charge: always give any reporter some sort of answer. Even if you don't assault them, they will always stick it to you if you don't.

According to Fox, Meehan has now admitted to it.

From their story:

"In Meehan's account to Fox News, he said a scrum of reporters was chasing Coakley and 'in the confusion the reporter fell over the fence.' Meehan said he thought McCormack was a Brown campaign operative.

'Four Scott Brown guys were out there,' he said. 'I thought he worked for Brown.'"
"

So . . . apparently media genius Meehan figured that there was a ""Hey, I thought he was a Republican" defense to a potential charge of assault and battery in Washington, D.C.

Gee, first I've heard of that one! But, I guess anything is possible.

The admission from Meehan, aka 'The Thug', that he mistakenly thought he was physically intimidating a Brown campaign operative is laughable. First of all, physically intimidating anyone is illegal, even Brown campaign operatives. And to even have a reasonable defense for mistakenly getting physical with the wrong guy, he would have to prove the Brown campaign operatives had done something threatening previously. AND he'd have to be BLIND because I do believe the video shows the reporter sticking his press badge up in Meehan's face.

Found this in a comment at:

http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/13/is-coakley-staffer-who-attacked-report-an-obama-appointee/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29

But when you check out the about page at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, it says "The BBG works to serve as an example of a free and professional press, ..." What an example!

here's the link:

http://www.bbg.gov/about/index.html

EDH - I don't know if you mean to, but you're sounding like a concern troll.

Both the video and still photo show that Coakley's statement "...I didn't see what happened..." is, at best misleading (even if she didn't "see" she knew what was happening) and, at worst, an out-and-out lie.

Obviously Brown needs to play this his way. But the rest of us need to point out (vigorously, and as often as possible) that it is the Democrats who resort to violence as a matter of course. No physical confrontation was needed, and, given the course of events, Coakley and Meehan should immediately have apologized for the (alleged) accident. If they had, this would be a non-story.

As it is, they deserve to be attacked on both fronts.

ザイツェヴ January 13, 2010 2:55 PM

No, a battery, in very simple terms, is an unlawful touching of another. In many jurisdictions, it has possible criminal and civil implications.

Meehan has now admitted that he was the person involved in the incident. So he could very well be subject to a charge of having committed a battery.

Now, whether it was a battery in a criminal sense would obviously be a matter of proof. I have a sense from things he has said that McCormack is not seeking to have charges brought against Meehan. I could be wrong, but, for example, he noted that Meehan had helped him up, though he also said that Meehan continued, for some time thereafter, to physically prevent John from questioning Coakley.

Given Meehan's comments to Fox, avoiding being charged with assault and battery may well be what Meehan was trying to do -- note that he cited the "confusion" and claimed that McCormack fell over the fence in that confusion. That seems aimed at minimizing or eliminating any implication of intent.

In my view, shoving someone so that they are knocked off their feet, and without any legitimate justification, is definitely an unlawful touching arising to the level of a battery.

You and EDH (who, based on the comments above, apparently thinks we should all clam up and say nothing) can attempt to spin this one as much as you care to. I think AllenG has it spot on -- sounds like a "concern troll."

We understand very well that this incident is harmful to and indeed should hurt Coakley politically, and for several obvious reasons.

Just to cite a few:

It draws attention to the fact that she was in Washington, D.C., collecting boodles of money from lobbyists, and thereby committing to selling her vote for this monstrosity of a bill. And it keeps that story alive.

Secondly, her obviously overzealous media consultant, Michael Meehan, a hired gun for the DSCC, recklessly sought to interfere with the public's right to know about what is going on with this healthcare bill. And he did, in part, so by physically knocking down a reporter who was merely trying to ask her a question. It is fair to conclude that she wanted it that way, unless and until she says otherwise.

And as noted repeatedly above, Coakley did nothing about the incident when it happened, and just walked away. The clear impression was that she could have cared less!

So, at an absolute minimum, she certainly deserves the ridicule she is getting.

All I said was don't play-up the incident as an act of violence to the point that it crowds out the more important message, or gives the other side an opening to make a counter-charge. And that's what a charge of assualt or battery does. For undecideds, this video, standing alone, won't move them to believe Democrats "resort to violence as a matter of course."

By all means, emphasize that this incident happend solely because Coakley and her Washington DC handlers were so desperate to duck questions from the press as she was coming out of a fundraiser for high-priced DC lobbyists. That will move undecideds.

But over emphasis on the incident as a violent crime that needs to be punished or some great injustice will have befell the republic -- in the expectation that undecideds, the press or DC law enforcement will take up the cause in the reporter's favor before next Tuesday -- very well may obscure that more important message for the audience that we're trying to reach.

"As far as Scott Brown's election is concerned, there is no gain in allowing these contretemps to swallow the real story here of Coakley's priorities, associations and allegences."
What EDH said.

All I can say is that I hope that the independent voters in Massachusetts get to see the video footage that shows the goon pushing down the reporter.

There is no excuse for the pushing and shoving. The man asked a simple question. She refused to give an answer.

He asked her about the fund raiser, and again she refused to give an answer.

What is it with people like Coakley? Does she see herself as "crowned princess Martha"?

Whoops, didn't realize I mispelled allegiances.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of any Coakley supporters who might be checking in, please be advised of the following change in your official talking points:

Old talking point: Brown campaign utterly lacking in momentum. His campaign not even on radar map.

New talking point: Brown peaked too soon. Coakley has reversed Brown's previous momentum.

Stay tuned. You will be provided updated talking points when and as they are crafted from on high.

"Whoops, didn't realize I mispelled allegiances."

You also misspelled "misspelled."

Conrad Bippy -- Good one!

Yes . . . but please notice there was no problem with "contretemps" . . .

Of course, EDH will now likely lecture us all for having so clouded the message that the Democrats have completely turned it all around . . . what with that Eric Schulz of the DSCC calling the actual filming of the incident a Republican "dirty trick."

Hey, here's a thought. Michael Meehan has now publicly offered an apology to John McCormack.

Given the nature of incident that caused these circumstances (that Meehan was inappropriately preventing John his right to ask Martha Coakley a few simple questions) perhaps John might in turn graciously offer to accept -- on one condition -- that Martha Coakley also agrees to submit to a short, face-to-face interview with John, and answer a modest, say, three questions.

On the record, i.e., videotaped.

And, of course, before the weekend.

Quoted from and Linked to this posting and to the 'complete coverage' link at:
Who'd A Thunk It?...[Update at 1759: Scott Brown NUDE]

Conrad Bibby said...
"You also misspelled 'misspelled.'"

And you correctly spelled a misspelled "mispelled."

Wow, now I'm really dizzy :)

Go Big Red!
Both daughters went to Cornell...both daughters gainfully employed...both daughters staunch conservatives... both daughters wish they lived in Mass where they grew up, so they could vote against Coakley. This is one father that did a good job!
MagicJohnny from Mass

Go Rig Red!
Both daughters went to Cornell, both daughters gainfully employed, both daughters staunch conservatives, both daughters sorry that they left Mass, cause they want to vote against Coakley. This is one Dad that did a good job!

If Brown wins be ready for the left to start their typical violence. Now is the time to see what the two groups are made of. I'm sure the conservatives will be as peacful as ever and the unions thugs will be their thugish selves. I've been doing a lot on my blog with these subjects.