An account of how an ABC reporter was treated by the Bachmann campaign elicited some controversy earlier today. From Time:
[ABC reporter Brian] Ross dashed after Bachmann, repeatedly asking whether she had ever missed a House vote due to a migraine. She ignored him. Ross pursued her into a parking area behind the stage. Her aides grew alarmed. When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force. In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one. Ross was finally able to break away and lob his question at Bachmann one more time, but she continued to ignore him.
Afterward, I asked Ross — a hard-nosed pro who nevertheless seemed slightly shaken — whether he had ever been treated so roughly. “A few times,” he told me. “Mostly by Mafia people.”
But Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart defended the campaign’s actions to the Washington Post, saying Ross had “jumped on stage and rushed towards us.”
“We didn’t have time for any questions, and we made it clear we had to leave, and he disregarded repeated requests to stay back,” Stewart added.