Congressman Bob Etheridge Assaults Student Film Crew

Here's a sitting Congressman, Bob Etheridge, D-NC2 assaulting a student  and his film crew when they attempt to ask him questions.

Here is his "apology" as published by CBS:

"No matter how partisan and no matter how difficult things get sometimes, that's no excuse for my response," he said. "I came today to say I'm sorry."

Etheridge said the confrontation happened after he came out of a meeting in Washington, D.C.

"The truth is, I had a long day, it was the end of the day -- but that's not the issue," he said. "I've been through a lot of tough situations... I've been spat at, pushed on and threatened before, and that's no excuse for... not walking on by."

His excuse for slamming these kids is "I had a long day."  Well, I guess it's ok to assault someone if you're a Congressman if you're tired...but for shits and grins, here are the publshed Democratic talking points  to justify a Congressman's assault: 

1. There is always the part of the story that you can’t see in these gotcha style videos — what were these folks doing, how did they approach him, how were the cameraman and/or others off camera acting?

2. Why would any legitimate student doing a project or a journalist shagging a story not identify themselves. Motives matter — what was the motivation here? To incite this very type of reaction?
3. This is clearly the work of the Republican Party and the “interviewer” is clearly a low level staffer or intern. That’s what explains blurring the face of the “interviewer” and refusing to identify the entity this was done for. The Republicans know if they were caught engaging in this type of gotcha tactic it would undermine their own credibility — yet if it was an individual acting on his own there is no reason that person would have blurred themselves out of the video — and if it was the work of a right wing blog they would have their logo on the video and be shouting their involvement from the roof top.
4. This was a purposefully partisan hit job designed to incite a reaction for political reasons — but it is a tactic so low — the parties involved are remaining anonymous.
5. The fact that no one wants to take credit for this should raise real questions in the minds of voters and the press.
6. Push hard w/ blogs the lack of credibility inherent to anything Breitbart does/posts, given its role in the debunked ACORN videos:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21pubed.html?src=twrhttp://mediamatters.org/research/201006010001
http://gawker.com/5508190/okeefe-and-breitbart-acorn-videos-severely-edited

So, what is the moral of this story accourding to the MSM?  It's permissible for a Democratic Congressman to attack someone with a camera who is daring to ask him questions.