Rep Bob Etheridge (D-NC) has already quickly apologized for the incident after it was aired on Big Government, but the damage is done. A sitting Congressman engaged in what can only be objectively viewed as an assault when confronted by a couple of well-dressed young men with a flip camera and a question.

Do you fully support the Obama agenda?

This so enraged Etheridge that he ended up putting on of his questioners in a headlock. This isn't too much caffeine, this is out-and-out paranoia and anxiety. Etheridge was a timebomb, and the ambush was all the trigger he needed to explode into violence. I don't know much about his district, except that it leans Republican, but I'd venture to guess that his prospects of reelection just got flushed.

Some have pointed out that Etheridge was set-up, and I won't argue with that, but let's face it, 60 minutes has been poking cameras into the faces of just ordinary citizens for decades at this point, so it hardly seems beyond the pale to do the same to an elected representative. Regardless of who the "students" are and who if anyone, might have sent them, Etheridge's reaction was completely within his control. Almost any other response would have been better, but he has to live with the one he gave.

Having given it some thought, if I was confronted by people with cameras, I would simply pretend that I was being mugged, taking out my wallet, hand over the cash and tell them repeated that there is no need for violence.

On the other hand, how hard should it be for a politician to have some canned rhetoric at the ready? Does everyone really need a teleprompter these days?