"The Capitol Police are fairly jaded about protests, but they get a bit more careful when it comes to pretending to hang a member of Congress," Ambreen Ali noted at Congress.org on Friday.

As anti-abortion protesters gathered outside the Senate Thursday, a dozen police officers stood poised to make arrests if the activists went too far.

Pasting a photograph of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) onto a human-looking figure and putting a noose around its neck was OK, police told protesters. But beating it with a stick they had brought with them was not.

For Randall Terry, the longtime anti-abortion activist who led the protest, the goal was to go as far as he possibly could.