How Bill Rice's finger was bitten off

You know the debate over health-care reform has "gotten really ugly," said Matthew Shaer in The Christian Science Monitor, "when people start losing body parts." That's reportedly what happened at a California vigil held by MoveOn.org in support of ObamaCare. Bill Rice, 65, walked over from a group of counterprotesters to the MoveOn camp—he told Fox News he punched a protester who called him an idiot, and the guy bit his pinky finger off. (watch Fox's Neil Cavuto interview William Rice)

This finger-biting incident takes the "crazy" health-care smackdown to a new level, said Chris Good in The Atlantic. During Congress' August recess, "there were death threats against members of Congress," and "people screaming at each other"—even fighting—at town hall events. "Hopefully we, as a nation, can make it to Congress's return next Tuesday without biting off any more appendages."

Thank goodness for socialized medicine—William Rice's trip to the emergency room was covered by Medicare, said Steven Mikulan in LA Weekly. Doctors couldn't reattach Rice's fingertip, though. There are more pro-health-care reform rallies coming up—"for the sake of everyone's fingers, let's hope the gloves stay on."

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MoveOn has condemned the finger biter—who's still on the loose, said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air. But "as conservatives, we believe in individual responsibility, not group guilt," so the blame goes to the person who started the violence, whether it's the biter, or Bill Rice. Still, this demonstrates "that most of the violence in these protests have come not from Tea Party activists or gun-carrying protesters, but from the counterprotesters from unions and left-wing groups"—file this under "Yes, We Cannibal."