I for one think it’s his thumb.  You can step through the video as he puts the hand back down you can see that the extend finger is the thumb because of the darkness between the finger and the hand.  Also, just the positioning of the hand seems to support that the finger is the thumb.  Plus who has the middle finger straight up as they raise their arm to flip someone off? Seems to me he was giving a thumbs up for some reason (didn’t have audio on for the clip).

After zooming the image, there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s the naughty finger he extended. There’s definitely a knuckle visible on the left side and two on the right.

The man is pathetic and obviously has an arrested development problem. I bet he flips off Lara on a regular basis and no doubt his cabinet members have become bored with his use of it in meetings.

I just wish the American public could agree that this redneck cowboy needs to be restrained from making rude adolescent gestures. Talk about a spoiled brat…

Anybody else see the irony in my post?

No? Well if anybody has a right to finger somebody, poor outed SpongeBob does.

I’ve just got to change that avatar.

I’ve just got to change that avatar.

Gosh, not just yet. It cracked me up when I first noticed it.

I’ve got a GIF of the action itself, and yes, Bush is indeed flipping the bird. Click here to see it clear as day.

And brock, please dont change your avatar. Spongebob flipping me off is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in such a long time :D

Edit: Whoops. My bad. Turns out that trying to load the movie, upload my gif AND write this all at the same time was a huge strain on my modem, and as it turns out, the gif i posted up was a seperate incident of bush flipping the people off, and wasnt part of that vid. Still, now that the vid has finished, I can see that bush DEFINATELY flipped off the media. Sorry for the GIF mix-up, but hey, at least now you got another pic of bush to laugh at.

And, just for shits and giggles, heres a signature pic that I made with my gif, and if I do say so myself, it makes a rather ironic political statement.

That pic rocks.  I am so stealing it.

After watching the QT about a dozen times I have come to the conclusion that it IS a thumbs-up and not the bird. Believe me that I was hoping for the finger but when he brings his arm back down and his wrist turns it becomes apparent that it is a thumb in the clip.

Yeah, definitely just a thumb.  He is just coming straight up with it and his balled up fingers on the left side of his hand are showing, making it look like a knuckle.  Sorry… Would have been interesting if it had really been a middle finger.  Not to mention, would Leno have been able to show it if it had been the middle finger?  I thought they blurred that kind of thing?
- Matt

Great vid, but I am going to have to say thumb too. Just try to raise the middle finger palm facing the same direction as you are. It’s very difficult without bringing the adjacent fingers up at least a little bit. Unless he’s extremely dexterous…

Yeah, its a thumb.  It looks to thin to be the back of the hand.

I’ve watched that video over and over and cannot not feel comfortable calling it a thumb. Sorry, it just isn’t possible for a thumb to be that long or to be positioned between the first and third knuckle.

You guys need to look again. I’m not ruling out image manipulation but a raised thumb doesn’t look like that at all, whether sideways or straight on. Bush has small hands and long fingers and the camera is looking up to his hand, not down to it. Plus, Bush hasn’t learned how to use his opposable thumb yet.

Ok, I’ll keep that avatar up for a while, but only because I’m allowed to. My next image will be of bunnies and puppies or something else down-right cute.

I geniunely believe it is his thumb.  Trust me, if I even remotely thought it was his middle finger I would say so.

Seems to be a case of mistaken fingdentity.

Looked again...thumb.  I can see the other fingers on the left side of his hand.  Plus, the “mystery digit” is a tad wide and has a curvature open to the left above the 2nd knuckle (like a thumb).  The only way I could say that it is his middle finger is if I knew he jammed it, repeatedly, onto something...like his “Nuclear Launch Button Practice Toy Set (c)(R)(TM)” or something…

Still, I know he has the capacity to be an ass (as demonstrated thousands of time before) so him not flipping of the press this time does not change my opinion of him...Jay “chinzilla” Leno on the other hand...well, he’s reaching.