The rough-and-tumble world of politics was on full display Tuesday night when longtime Democratic strategist Michael Meehan was caught on videotape shoving a reporter for the Weekly Standard into a metal railing, reportedly giving him a large tear in his pants.

The incident occurred outside of a Washington fundraiser for Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate in a competitive race to fill the seat of the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.

The trip has drawn criticism, since Coakley, the state attorney general, was in Washington seeking money from lobbyists while polls show a tightening race.

Click here to watch the video of the scuffle.

Meehan told Fox News that he has tried to reach out to Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack to apologize and he's likely to do that.

McCormack, in his account of the incident published on the conservative magazine's Web site, wrote that he had been trying to ask Coakley about a remark she'd made in a debate with Republican opponent Scott Brown in which she said there are no terrorists in Afghanistan and they're all in Pakistan and Yemen.

McCormack said Coakley blew him off, and then he followed her for a few blocks until he was shoved by Meehan, who had attended the fundraiser and worked previously on a Democratic opponent of Coakley in the primary.

"I ended up on the sidewalk. I was fine," McCormack wrote in the Weekly Standard. "He helped me up from the ground, but kept pushing up against me, blocking my path toward Coakley down the street."

When McCormack asked the man whom he worked for, he replied, "I work for me," demanding to see McCormack's credentials on a public street. After McCormack showed him his ID, he said he met up with Coakley halfway down the block, asking her question that she declined to answer.

In Meehan's account to Fox News, he said a scrum of reporters was chasing Coakley and "in the confusion the reporter fell over the fence." Meehan said he thought McCormack was a Brown campaign operative.

"Four Scott Brown guys were out there," he said. "I thought he worked for Brown."

Meehan said he helped McCormack up and asked who he was because McCormack had not shown his media credentials. When told he was caught on video shoving McCormack to the ground, Meehan said, "It wasn't my intention to knock him on the ground."

Click here to read McCormack's account of the incident.

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The picture looks like he is bending down to help the person.