“I’m George Allen, and I approved of this beating”
Update: According to David Lat, the guy who received the beatdown was Mike Stark, a UVA law student, blogger, and “gunner.” I know that SA has several UVA-law-student readers, what say you folks about this Stark fellow?
November 1st, 2006 at 12:10 am
He’s a 1L so I don’t know anything about him personally, but they’re just showing it on the 11PM news right now and the video of the takedown is pretty funny. They showed Stark later on going into the C’ville police station to demand that they arrest his assailants.
His website is
http://www.callingallwingnuts.com/, from which his favorite pasttime appears to be calling conservative talk shows to regale them with his wisdom. I get the impression that his level of discourse is probably fairly well suited to the typical radio talk show, though from the opposite political direction.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:09 am
>what say you folks about this Stark fellow
Did you watch the video? What say you about the actions of the Allen staff? Stark–regardless of his status as a law student at UVA–was obnoxious in asking about Allen’s sealed divorce records, a fairly personal legal matter, where he knew Allen was being filmed but unless I’m missing something Stark didn’t deserve to be assaulted.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:03 am
Maybe Allen has a chance of winning now. It has got to help you in Virginia when you are accused of beating down a lawyer.
Plus no man embarasses another man about a divorce. That is just bad form.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:22 am
Looks like part of the heckler’s shirt lifted up in the struggle. Is this the angle from Maccaca’s videocamera?
November 1st, 2006 at 10:53 am
my granny could give a better beat down….none of this was worth getting steamed up about on either side
November 1st, 2006 at 12:12 pm
That was hardly a beatdown, it looked to me like they were just using the needed force to hold him back. I saw a shove but no fists were flying. The guy got less than what he deserved for be such an idiot.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Perhaps the Allen campaign should have taken a cue from the last campaign of the Cheerleader-in-chief and relegated opponents to a “free speech zone” blocks away from the event.
Why do Rethuglicans hate free speech?
November 1st, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Why do Rethuglicans hate free speech?
I don’t know, John, why don’t you ask the students at Columbia who shouted down the Minutemen when they spoke on campus, or the group of Emory students who shouted down Ward Connerly when he spoke there, or any number of “free thinking” “liberals” who often prefer to hear the sound of their own screaming voices rather than actually listen to the words of someone who has a different viewpoint.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:33 pm
I think Stark is just desperate for more traffic to his blog and deliberately set himself up for some over-reaction.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:44 pm
We must stop the Rethuglican assault on free speech! Let’s start by silencing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News!
November 1st, 2006 at 3:10 pm
rethuglican…..i like that. its real “street”! maybe we should be repimplicans that would be even better….repuggas? get all reagan up in this mofo.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:21 pm
This is not the first time that Stark has performed similar antics at an Allen event. He also did something similar, but without the divorce reference, in late Aug/early september if I remember right.
He is a 1-L and a well known “gunner.” Yes, several people think he might be a little full of himself, but at least he cares enough to act on his beliefs in this manner.
As for insulting someone about their divorce, this entire race in VA has turned more than ugly. After the macaca, N-word, penis-in-mouth and Webb hates women bits, I don’t think this can qualify as bad form.
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:35 am
Excuse me, what is a “gunner.”
Tigger
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:34 am
#13 Tigger
Gunner means he’s willing to stab a peer in the back in order to get ahead.
Daniel
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:30 am
Why do Rethuglicans hate free speech?
You need to check out the slideshow of photos at Captain’s Quarters showing Stark pushing and shoving (which we lawyers, in occult legal talk call “assaulting”) an Allen aid in an attempt to get in Allen’s face immediately prior to his heckling.
Why do Democraps consider violence a form of political speech?
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Can any of you coming to the defense of Allen’s staff HONESTLY say that if this involved a liberal politician you’d minimize the incident or defend it like some have?
Seriously, they had no right to batter him like they did. It’s absolutely clear-cut in the video. Now I don’t necessarily impute the actions of some stupid staffers to Allen personally as some have tried to do to make political hay. But just come out and say that. Say, “Yeah they were wrong. But Allen didn’t ask them to do that and they were just some staffers acting on their own and out of line.”
Don’t sit there and defend them. It just makes you look like a ridiculous partisan hack.