Her name indicates that she could be a "furriner". If true, could she be naive enough to not realize the significance of the middle finger in our culture?
I think her analogy with the hand and the fingers was actually very good and positive- it just happens that the middle finger is associated with an defamatory epithet.
If this automatic association was not present, this entire thread and discussion would be entirely different.
Having said that, I really don't know what her politics are, and given the unfortunate prevalence for liberal anti-americanism, it really wouldn't surprise me much to learn that her actual intent truly was to subtly give her country the finger.