"Various left-wing bloggers voiced their outrage when blogger/activist Mike Stark got leveled after trying to push his way through to George Allen at a hotel this week. CNN video showed Stark trying to get around campaign staffers to shout at Allen about spitting on his first wife, a charge Allen's former spouse denied and called "baseless". The same staffers tossed Stark to the ground when he refused to back away, prompting accusations of goonery by Allen's campaign.

However, a series of photographs 

http://fredericksburg.com/News/Web/2006/102006/1031allen/index2_html?qstart=1 

from the event by the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star shows that Allen's staff had good reason to worry about Stark. He assaulted one staffer in his attempt to get to Allen, something that the CNN cameras wouldn't have caught. Here's a slideshow of Stark's actions before the confrontation that everyone saw on the video.

Very obviously, Stark had become violent before the altercation we saw on CNN. The staffers afterwards closed ranks around Allen to keep Stark from committing violence against the Senator, and when he continued to push and shov....