Rep. Bob Etheridge's attack on student: 'Inexcusable'?

Bob Etheridge (D—NC) has been caught on video manhandling a student who stopped him on a Washington, D.C., street to ask if he "fully supports the Obama government." (See the video below.) Though the North Carolina congressman has apologized for his "poor response," pundits are debating both his violent reaction and the motives of the self-identified "student" videographers who approached him as part of a "project." "Expect more of this," says Mike Flynn at Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, which originally posted the clip. The "hard, progressive Left" realizes its majority in Congress is coming to an end, and its representatives are evidently "a bit testy." Etheridge's "conduct is inexcusable," says Doug Mataconis in Outside the Beltway, but it's worth noting that this was "clearly an ambush interview and not some citizen on the street." The Democratic Party, adds Ben Smith at Politico, has already sent out a "context" e-mail labeling the video a "purposefully partisan hit job," though it's "hard to think of a context in which Etheridge's assault... would be acceptable." Watch the clip: