Glenn Beck's book club: what the far right is reading.

• Author: Weigel, David
• Position: TEN MILES SQUARE - Recommended readings

At the first antitax Tea Parties in February, some of the conservative malcontents who took to their city parks and traffic intersections to protest President Barack Obama's policies waved placards they'd designed that morning: "Atlas is Shrugging" and "Who is John Galt?" They were making reference to Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's 1957 novel, in which productive members of society rebel and retreat from the economy, leaving the "looters" to reap what their high taxes and regulation had sown. The signs were there, literally, from the get-go: the conservative reaction to Democratic rule was rooted in apocalyptic visions of a state gone mad, between two covers.

In subsequent months, the right-wing revolt against Obama has continued to seek inspiration from printed manifestos. While the old guard, the Sean Hannitys and Bill O'Reillys, can still sell books, the titles that appear more prominently in Amazon rankings and on folding tables at marches are a mix of newer stars and unlikely ur-texts. They have adopted an old guide for the left because they think liberals used it to plot their political takeover. They've latched onto other books that promise to reveal how so many of their fellow Americans have been lulled into supporting Europe-style socialism. The movement's most popular books have loftier aspirations, providing activists with new ammunition--from the Founders, economists, the conservative media--to rebel against the president.

Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, by Saul Alinsky (1971). John McCain's too-late attempt to tar Obama with his connections to New Left veterans like Bill Ayers didn't amount to much at the polls. Ironically, that failure convinced many conservatives that Obama's wild-eyed pals and mentors had been on to something, and this 1971 tract by famed community organizer Saul Alinsky, long a mainstay of the activist left, is now required reading on the right as well. New employees of Dick Armey's Freedom-Works get copies at the door; dames O'Keefe III, the cheeky twenty-five-year old who planned the hidden-camera sting of ACORN, said he was inspired by Alinsky's call for lefty radicals to "make the enemy live up to their own book of rules."

Alinsky's recommendation to mock political opponents has been even more influential. "It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule," he writes. "Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage." For evidence of how that works, ask...