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City Link
December 16, 2009
Remember last summer, when Congress took its summer break and the various
congresscritters all went home to their districts, only to be savaged by hordes
of screaming idiots whose hobbies included watching Glenn Beck, dreaming up
paranoid Obama-centric conspiracy theories and teabagging? Ah, yes. Good times,
good times. The anger rarely boiled over from simple apoplectic rhetoric, but
there were exceptions, particularly when protesters and counterprotesters
happened upon the same event.
Consider the Sept. 2 meeting of the Greater
Miami Chamber of Commerce, which featured an appearance by Sen. Bill Nelson.
Nelson's stance on health-care reform was largely unknown at the time – he was
fence-sitting until the Senate Finance Committee, of which he is a member,
announced its health-care plan a month later – and so a group of about 40
health-care-reform advocates picketed outside the building. Driving by in his
pickup truck, Raul Anasagasti noted the presence of these
Marxist-fascist-commie-Obamacare-loving America haters, and so he pulled over to
yell at them. Words were exchanged, particularly between Anasagasti and
demonstrator Luis Perrero. After Perrero hurled a Spanish epithet, Anasagasti
did what any freedom-loving, free-speech-advocating, red-blooded American would
do – he decked Perrero in the face.
Anasagasti initially claimed
self-defense, saying Perrero had raised an arm to hit him, but the dozens of
witnesses made that claim seem a bit tenuous. Last Thursday, Anasagasti agreed
to serve 50 hours of community service and take anger-management courses, which
is no doubt confusing to the poor guy. After all, according to the tenets of the
bizarro world of far-right America, where free speech means punching someone in
the face and expanding health-care coverage to all Americans means killing
grandma, Anasagasti should have been given a medal.