Many of you saw yesterday's video of Virginia constituent and Marine vet, Mike Stark, assaulted by men wearing George Allen badges as Stark attempted to ask the Republican senator some tough questions.
This evening Stark appeared on Keith Olbermann's program [video parts 1 and 2 right] to talk about the ordeal and to clear up some of the, well, "lies" being peddled by the Allen campaign, such as Allen's confidently-spouted lie that Stark was working for the Webb campaign.
An interesting question though: Although Stark clearly wasn't working for Allen's increasingly popular challenger Jim Webb, would it have been okay to assault him if he were? Just asking. Rough transcript after the jump...
mike stark was neither a protestor or a heckler. yet he was labeled as both as well as a supporter of james webb in virginia. as if any of those labels materially changes the third story in the countdown. what happened when stark a marine veteran as it happens dared to ask his senator a question. today the campaign of senator george allen released a statement about the incident saying:
"volunteers restrained him and asked [him] to leave the building when he approached the Senator a second time, asking inappropriate questions."
it is, of course, the right of all americans to ask any question, and as this video from the summer shows, the Allen campaign was already familiar with mr. stark and his penchant for difficult questions. it
is still all right for us to ask questions isn't it?
that said, whether he was restrained or asked to leave the building or in fact was thrown to the floor because Allen's campaign decided Stark was getting personal, you judge for yourself.
...
let's bring in the man at the center of all this, mike stark, law student at the university of virginia, blogger at callingallwingnuts.com. Mike, thanks for joining us tonight.
Evening Keith.
let's start with the senator's accusation, irrelevant as it ultimately might be, is that you, like the young man he called macaca in the campaign were acting as part of his rival, Mr Webb's campaign. let me play the exchange and get your reaction.
do you have evidence that there was a direct connection between this gentleman and the webb campaign?
Sure, this guy with was them taping it when he was trying this same sort of stunt back in august.
so he said he was direct evidence there was a direct connection between you and webb campaign. did the webb staffers know what you were doing?
none did at all. campaigns lie and george allen is a liar. he -- it is getting towards the end of the election season and he is desperate and he is clinging to whatever excuse he can conjure up right now.
the release from the allen campaign does not mention you were good enough to call the bill o'reilly show and mention my name which led the silicon chips in Bill O's head to melt which led him to claim he had his own police. but the press release does claim mike stark pushed the allen staffer. did you push anybody?
i didn't push anybody that i remember. there was definitely a scrum going on there and i did my best to jockey for position. i was trying to pace the senator to continue with my questions as he moved through the crowd. and they were pushing me around. it was definitely difficult to maintain my position. i think the video speaks for itself, though. i mean, I did my absolute best to restrain myself the entire time. i mean, my attentions were completely focused on the senator.
that piece of glass that your head nearly hit against or at least touched, do you have any idea how thick -- that looks when you see the video that you might have begun through it. was that a possibility?
sure. it didn't happen. i'm glad it didn't happen. but i don't think anybody really took that into account when this was happening. i think they were made uncomfortable by the questions. i asked the senator whether or not he was going to release his arrest records and i asked him, you know, what was in the divorce record, that the rumors were true that he spit on his first wife?
So that's where that was not a random question about did you stop spitting on your wife? it is -- it comes from where?
talkingpointsmemo.com. ...
i note with amusement that the third paragraph of the senator's press release today accuses you of being, quote "a frequent Daily Kos blogger." bad, mike. you're not allowed to do that.
i've been doing that for three years.
it is the third lead in their story of this. anyway, the other member of family that was sort of involved in this campaign in a way they couldn't have expected, allen's sister wrote something called fifth quarter talks about her brothers. let me quote something from this.
senator allen knew you, had talked to you before. do you have any idea what his reaction to the assault on you was? did he try to stop it or intervene in any way?
that is the most disturbing thing about this.. and truly it it is embarrassing to the united states and virginia. he was in control of that situation at all times. at any time he could have said wait a minute, this isn't the way my campaign operates. take your hands off that man, stop this. instead he watched it happen and walked away when things started really getting out of control. and any time he could have stopped that. that is a failure of leadership.
any idea who that was in the glasses?
no, I don't have any idea who any of these men were . i did file a police report. i'm pressing charges against the people who did this. and i expect the police and the commonwealth to sort out the names. these people are known. some of them are g.o.p. officials in the county. others were campaign staffers. and i've heard that they've threatened to press charges against me. the senator has his wife out there casting aspersions against me. it is tough when a grown man has to have his wife fight his battles. what a cowardly bully.
unfortunately, it is common. mike stark who was pushed to the ground while trying to push the senator on a question. thanks for sharing your side of the story.
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