For a long time now Rush Limbaugh, and to a lesser extent his mimics, have had a great time bashing away at a liberal straw man: the granny glasses-wearing, Granola-eating, tree-hugging, Yugo-driving, herbal-tea-drinking girlie-man the right holds up as epitomizing the out-of-the-mainstream, oddball lefty.

Last week the tables turned, though. A new archetype has surfaced at John McCain/Sarah Palin rallies, only these aren't straw men, these are flesh-and-blood people with some goofy-assed ideas. These are white, lower-middle-class people who believe what they read in the e-mails their elderly friends Cc: to everyone they ever met. Barack Obama is not only a Socialist but also a Muslim, and according to Gayle Quinnell (photo above), a woman with Phyllis Diller hair who was at McCain's rally in Minnesota last week, he's also an Arab.

Quinnell was only the most recent example of this archetype. Earlier on McCain had the proud support of Harriet Christian, a New York Democrat who freaked out so hard when Hillary Clinton didn't get the nomination that she called Obama "an inadequate black male" and swore John McCain would be our next president.

Then there was the guy in Wisconsin who shooshed McCain at his own event to tell him, "I'm mad! I'm really mad!" Washington, D.C. is full of "hooligans," you see! And Socialists! (Do you think that guy's ever met a genuine Socialist?)

There have also been reports of crowds surrounding news crews at rallies and calling a black cameraman "boy" and shouting obscenities. This was because Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin "gotcha" questions like "what newspapers and magazines do you read?" On CNN last night I saw an interview with a guy who had a sign that said "S.A.R.A.H: Sane Americans 'R' Against Hussein Obama." When the reporter asked him if his sign didn't encourage hate the guy proved his peaceful intentions by saying, "WHO ARE YOU FOR? WHO ARE YOU FOR?" in a very belligerent, threatening tone.

McCain/Palin have played to the base, all right: the most base aspects of the most base people that can be found. These portly, pallid people lined up at witch burnings 150 years ago and bought snakeoil from medicine shows just 100 years ago. They may have left the pitchforks and torches behind but they still want somebody hung, and I have a horrible feeling one of these crackpots may take a crack at Obama some day.

But in the meantime, they sure do provide some very deep bellylaughs.

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The World is About to Rock


In less controversial news...AC/DC's new album, Black Ice, is due out exclusively at Wal-Mart stores on October 20th. They've also got a world tour planned.

In the past two or three years I've become a pretty big AC/DC fan, collecting everything from High Voltage to Flick of the Switch and two of their DVD retrospectives, Family Jewels and Plug Me In. So I thought for a few seconds about buying tickets to see them play "Highway to Hell" one more time in their dotage, but that idea quickly died: the tickets sold out in a day! More people than I would've reckoned are eager to see Angus do the duck walk one more time.

Oh, well...tickets were $90 and parking was $20. What are the chances I would really blow that kind of dough? Pretty slim.

However, the pride of Australia is on the verge of becoming respectable in their 50's and 60's: there was a great article on them in The New York Times. And did you know singer Brian Johnson spent a few nights in Kennesaw, Georgia once? And Brendan O'Brien, another Atlantan, produced this Black Ice CD. Gee.