[Update: The attack was made-up!] The Smoking Gun found the Twitter stream of the John McCain campaign volunteer who reported being attacked by a Barack Obama supporter earlier tonight. The volunteer, Ashley Todd, was blogging just before and after the incident, and her Twitter posts were available to the public up until a few hours ago, when she set them to private. That's probably prudent: a presidential campaign trying to peel working-class voters away from the Democrats probably doesn't want people getting the wrong idea about what it means when one of its volunteers calls Little Italy "the wrong side of Pittsburgh."

Todd surely meant she was on the "wrong" side of town because it was the opposite of where she wanted to be, geographically. Not because she was scared of bitter poors and so forth. Right?

Because Bloomington, where Todd was attacked, is described by a historian (cited on Wikipedia) not as a ghetto but as "a feast, as rich to the eyes as the homemade tortellini and cannoli in its shop windows are to the stomach." Judging from the ShoppingBloomfield.com website, that description sounds like it remains accurate to this day, what with the gourmet bistro, art gallery, antique store and farmer's market.

Google Maps has a street-level panoramic picture of the intersection where the attack occurred (click the white arrows to move around). The ATM is across from a church and some nice-looking houses and next to a sports supplements store, clothing shop and Italian-themed cafe. Across the street is a Thai place. Doesn't look like too bad a neighborhood. But one never knows when and where a random act of violence might occur!

Although you would think the political revolutionary thugs would be more at home in, say, Philadelphia. Maybe they dispatch the dyslexic, backwards-"B" carving ones to Pittsburgh?

UPDATE: As Wonkette, reports, you can still see the Twitter stream here. And as one of our commenters points out, even Michelle Malkin isn't buying the story.