When partisan violence gives you lemons, make lemonade. I like to imagine that Josh Marshall and Air America wrote two versions of this story before everything was straightened out about which protester did what to who. If the victim turned out to be pro-ObamaCare and therefore politically useful, they’d run the copy expressing their outrageous outrage; if not, they’d run this. Think of it as a tiny, surreal illustration of Chappaquiddick logic: Sure, the incident is, er, “regrettable,” but it’s fully redeemed by lefty policy.

MKH spoke to the victim, who’s strayed very far indeed from The Narrative:

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.”

It’s a shame they couldn’t reattach it, but let’s look on the bright side: If you believe The One, the doctors probably wanted to amputate his whole hand.

Update: From the nutroots’ lips to Shuster’s ears. Carry that water, David.