(The American situation in a nutshell: One young man, startled awake out of his slumbers, freaks out a bit and tries to make a serious point; another American, observing, can't fathom why he'd do such a thing. And so it goes.)

(Never underestimate the power of symbols; human hearts are often attached to them.)

Friday April 6 3:40 PM ET
Man Attacks Liberty Bell in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A man dressed in military fatigues and shouting about God attacked the 249-year-old Liberty Bell with a hammer in Philadelphia on Friday in front of group of astonished tourists, federal park officials said.

The unidentified suspect was quickly wrestled to the ground and arrested by National Park rangers inside the small glass Liberty Bell pavilion near Independence Hall, where the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution were both adopted in the 18th century.

Officials described the assailant as a white man, aged about 30, with no identification. He was wearing several layers of clothing, including fatigues, and carrying a guitar and a bamboo pole.

``He mentioned something about God and struck the bell four or five times,'' said Frank Eidmann, director of special projects for the Independence National Historic Park.

``Anyone who attacks a national symbol is disturbed. What he was disturbed about, we don't know,''

(Note from Hobie: It's nearly April 15th, and they don't know? :)

The Liberty Bell, which rang from the tower of Independence Hall to announce the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, is Philadelphia's largest single
tourist attraction.

The pavilion was closed for about three hours while preservationists examined several blemishes and hammer imprints left by the attack. Parks officials said they would need more time to determine whether there was serious damage.

The attack occurred at around 9:45 a.m. (1345 GMT). Park officials said the suspect had been part of a regular public tour and historical lecture that had just ended when he withdrew a small hammer from his jacket.

Frank Miranda, a California math teacher who witnessed the attack with a tour group of middle-school students, said he thought he heard the suspect shout that freedom is God.

``I thought: 'Here is this guy yelling about his freedom being taken away and here he is doing something like this!','' Miranda told local radio.

The National Park Service later set up a new barrier to stop visitors from getting close to the bell.

The Liberty Bell has been attacked more than once before in recent history. That last time was in the early 1970s when a man was arrested for beating the bell with a car's tailpipe, a National Park Service spokesman said. The English-made bell arrived in Philadelphia in 1752 and during the next year was hung in the tower of Independence Hall, then the meeting site of Pennsylvania's colonial assembly.

It was cracked by a stroke of the clapper soon after its arrival and the crack became permanent during an 1846 celebration of George Washington's birthday.

But it was not until 1837 that an Abolitionist pamphlet applied the term ``Liberty Bell'' to the bell, which has sat in a glass pavilion near Independence Hall since the 1976 bicentennial celebration.

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