Well, William Rice didn't actually give MoveOn the finger -- his pinky was forcibly removed by an Obamacare supporter's teeth.
Rice, a 65-year-old real-estate appraiser from Newbury Park, Calif., expected some heated arguments when he went to a health care protest in Thousand Oaks. He did not expect to leave without his finger.
Rice was part of a small group of counter-protesters who showed up to a MoveOn-sponsored "We Can't Afford to Wait" vigil. The two groups were on opposite sides of the street. At one point, a man from the MoveOn side of the street crossed over to confront Obama critics. Rice got in an altercation with the man, who bit off his pinky finger in the scuffle, down to the second knuckle, Rice said. The man, who is pictured leaving the scene in this group of photos, is still at large.
The alleged crime is a serious one:
"It's considered a mayhem which is the removal of an appendage from a human," said Norris of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. "The crime is punishable by imprisonment for 2, 4, or 8 years."
Rice drove himself to nearby Los Robles Hospital after the incident for treatment. One report said his finger was reattached, but Rice told THE WEEKLY STANDARD in a phone interview that's not the case.
"They weren't able to attach it because a human bite has so much bacteria," said Rice, who also said Wednesday's rally had a different feeling than other local health care events he'd been to recently.
"It had a Code Pink element that I'd never seen before and it had a MoveOn element I'd never seen before," he said, calling some of the Obamacare supporters "borderline emotionally out of control."
Even so, Rice said he'd had a cordial discussion with several Code Pink protesters before he walked back over to his side of the street. One report characterized that exchange as a "heated discussion," but Rice said it wasn't and was "not a catalyst or a trigger whatsoever." Some liberal witnesses have alleged Rice was intimidating Obamacare supporters, but Rice, who has a son in the Marines, said he talked with several Code Pink members about what their message was, afraid it might be anti-troops. He said when he realized they were there to talk health care, he went back to his side of the street.
Scott Bush, an Obama critic who was standing next to Rice when the incident happened, said critics and supporters of Obama had had face-to-face, calm debates throughout the night without incident until the suspect in the biting crossed the street to confront critics. Of Rice's behavior, he said:
"He didn't even have a sign. He was just there to be a part of things. He's a nice man."
The suspect yelled at the group, "Are you for the public option?" When the crowd answered, "no," Bush said he singled out Rice, one of the smaller men in the group, coming at him and yelling, "You're an idiot, you're an idiot!"
"I don't think he had any intentions whatsoever of talking," said Rice, who "popped him in the nose" when he got close to his face.
Bush called Rice's move "defensive." Bush said the incident became a scuffle, the public-option supporter pulled Rice into the street, and it was over very quickly after that. During the struggle, Rice said his finger ended up in the suspect's mouth, and it was bitten off.
"William grabbed his hand and said, 'Oh, he bit my finger off," Bush said. "It was clear that the end of his finger was bitten off. It was a stump."
Rice left for the hospital and the assailant ran away before police arrived. Bush looked for Rice's fingertip and found it about 20 feet away from the scuffle, in the street.
"I got in my car and I took his finger to Los Robles and I found him, and I gave him back his finger," Bush said, who carried the digit wrapped in a napkin.
Unfortunately, "it was of no use," Rice said.
MoveOn released this statement on the incident, calling it a "regrettable act of violence," but said they don't know whether the suspect was a MoveOn member.
Liberals on Twitter were somewhat less politic, declaring the forcible amputation a victory of government-run medicine over a hypocritical Obamacare critic. Because of his age, Rice is covered by Medicare.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo said: "bright side! anti-health care reform protestor has finger reattached under Medicare after hcr supporter bites it off"
Air America posts about the incident under the gleeful title, "Anti-reform protester forced to use government insurance."
Rice will likely go in Friday for further repair on the finger.
"The prognosis is they're holding off on repairing it until they see what kind of infections I may incur, and then they'll clean it up, trim the bone back, and take care of the nerve endings and all those things."
I would have gotten the suspect's side of the story, but he didn't stick around to sing the praises of the Medicare services he forced Rice to use.
