Not because of their health-insurance policies or their belief in egalitarianism, but just because they have hung on to the all-American ideal of civil discourse and civic behavior a lot better than we have.

We are really sunk as a nation.

Of course, the wag in me can't help but wonder whether the now pinky-free fellow has sufficient health insurance that the bill for said re-pinkification won't take his arm and a leg too.

Maybe the anti-reform, presumably anti-government-in-my-health-care chap has Medicare to cover all?

What if an anti-reform person had bitten off the finger of a pro-reform person? Rather than a ha-ha moment, it would have been further graphic evidence of the brutally fascist tendencies of the opponents.

Medicare should help that 65-year-old teabagger get his stump attended to.

A number of self defense techniques, specifically designed for women, which include breaking a assailant's pinkies (grabbing someone's pinkies when they are, for example, strangling you, can be very effective as your attacker is forced to choose between letting go or having his pinkies broken).

But I'm sure the right wing will spin this as an attack by a "radical leftist" against a peaceful (and possibly gun-toting) anti-reform protestor.

Never let fact stand in the way of a good story.

Rabies is highly contagious.

Getting hit in the face isn't funny, and having one's finger bitten off certainly isn't funny. Both people should be charged with whatever is appropriate for what they did.

assuming the information in this article is correct, the individual that bit the other man was likely reacting in self defense after being pummeled by the other guy.

it is not as if he just randomly went and bit off someone's finger. but very nice try, mickey, to deflect attention of the real brutality of the incident.

Never bite off more than you can chew.

Except that, from what we can tell currently, it was the anti-reform protestor who began the confrontation, or at least the physical part of it.

So if the tables were turned and it was the MoveOn supporter whose pinky was now gone, he would still have no one to blame but himself.

But in reality, in which right-wing radicals are and always have been more violent than liberal protestors, Mr. Anti-Reform is still left having, uh, bitten off more than he could chew when he decided to throw that punch.

He might also have a lawyer lined up already to sue the guy with the teeth, thus becoming someone rightwingers tend to deride -- a money-hungry person who hires a trial lawyer to make millions of dollars from his tiny injury.

So ironic.

If reattachment of his pinky, which serves no real purpose to the use of a hand, is considered cosmetic surgery then he's screwed because it won't be covered by his health plan. How in the hell did his pinky end up in the guys mouth anyway?

It's a fallacy that the pinkie has no function to the hand. 80% of a the strength of a typical person's hand is powered by the ring and pinkie fingers. The "big" fingers - index and social fingers - are for fine movements like picking one's nose or flipping the bird. I was surprised at how much losing the seemingly useless ring finger changed the entire dynamics of how I use my hand to grip, etc.

Just an aside.... now back to the screaming....

...get attacked by a dozen SIEU members who carved a backwards "B" on his face in support of the president who was at that very moment giving his grandchildren a lecture on how great communism is, and now he's confined to a wheelchair and being attended to by his lawyer who happened to also be a witness?

Not saying that events definitely didn't occur the way they said they did, but given the history of these stories, I'm going to wait a few days before mentally filing this story under "actually happened".

"imagine the outrage if..."?

i am outraged. i am equally as outraged that it happened to an anti-reformer as i would have been had it happened to pro-reformer. it's disgusting! what's wrong with people these days?

just yesterday i was reading a local news story about a 61-year-old man shopping at wal-mart who picked up a 2-year-old child THAT WAS A STRANGER TO HIM and slapped her across the face 4 or 5 times because she was crying in public.

i mean really! what has happened to the american public?

it's not ok to pull out a gun at toys r us during an argument over a freakin' toy.

it's not ok to slap strangers' children.

it's not ok to shoot someone because you were robbing them and what the heck.

it's not ok to bring guns to presidential appearances.

it's not ok to beat the living crap out of your celebrity girlfriend and then get on tv and say you don't see what the big deal is.

IT'S NOT OK TO BITE OTHER PEOPLES' FINGERS OFF BECAUSE YOU DISAGREE WITH THEM.

JESUS CHRIST.

The risk would be perilous.

I am just sick. This is terrible, I can't believe this has devolved so horribly. How embarrassing. Our country appears to be inhabited mostly by morons and lunatics.

Did you miss the part about the guy hitting the biter in the face first?

Once a punch is thrown rules are out the window. The idea that a retaliation or defense should be appropriate and not excessive is bullshit . . . if somebody comes at you, you take them out. If they end up in the hospital, it is their fault. The whole point of being in a fight is to end the fight, usually by incapacitating the other person.

The jury's out for me on this one, too: true vs. rumor. But there was a documented assault at a health rally yesterday in Miami, where a 52-yo man punched a 65-yo pro-reform man in the face.

Maybe we should just let all these idiots go at each other in some sort of arena. Might "reduce the surplus population" and reduce the cost of reform, as well as giving the gene pool a nice squeegee job.