The Year of Yelling

Last week, as lawmakers faced conservatives protesters at the Capitol before passing health care reform legislation, several Democrats claimed they were taunted, facing racist and homophobic slurs. As for Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, he claimed one of the demonstrators, a guy in a white baseball cap who was presumably with the Tea Party movement, spit on him. Now comes video from The Huffington Post, a politically left-of-center website, of the incident in question that is bound to create more questions than answers. While HuffPo's headline implies the video offers proof of the incident, it may also play into the hands of skeptics, like Fox News' Sean Hannity, who had offered a cash reward for proof of the spitting.

One theory sure to arise from the video is that the protester was yelling at Cleaver as phlegm flew accidentally from his mouth. In other words, the unidentified protester is what you might call a moist yeller, not a spitter.

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