For those of you in Las Vegas, I’m (probably) going to be on KVVU-Fox 5 news at 5 this afternoon, commenting on a new Time magazine cover story about “Fabulous Less Vegas.”

Basically, it’s yet another example of what Hal Rothman called “carpetbagger journalists” blowing through town and trying to pass off their insights as a thorough plumbing of the American dream. I don’t have the cover in front of me, but it even mentioned journeying to the heart of the American dream–a pretty blatant homage rip-off of Hunter S. Thompson.

Then you’ve got self-proclaimed non-idiot David Rothkopf over at NPR, who typed up this drivel the other day:

Last week, I spent a couple days — after a beautiful trip of whitewater rafting in Colorado and hiking through the amazing Utah desert — in the idiot capital of America: Las Vegas, Nevada. While many decry Las Vegas as a fleshpot, a blight on civilization or just the tackiest place on the planet Earth, first and foremost it is the Capistrano of idiots, the place to which nature draws them all (or at least the ones who could not get full-time work in Washington or Hollywood). You can tell because even at the airport, they have games of chance that guarantee that whoever plays them will lose their money… and long lines of people waiting to play. And the airport is just the tip of the iceberg of an entire industry built on the notion that people can’t count or won’t, that they believe in magical outcomes (see earlier offensive religious reference) or are just too damn dumb to breathe.

The city offers shows that cater to idiot tastes (how else can one explain the long and flourishing career of Carrot Top or the fact that every other person in town seems to have a tattoo that they are certain to regret in a matter of months if not minutes?). The city even seems to think that if it doesn’t build windows into casinos that the idiots will lose track of the time and stay in them forever (much as horses will reputedly continue to eat until their stomachs explode or as right wing conservatives will continue incessantly to hammer the policies of the ’80s regardless of how outdated or discredited they have become).

In fact, it is telling that Las Vegas is so dependent on stupidity that it is one of the few cities in America where alcohol (read: stupid juice) is sold on every street corner and practically handed out free on casino floors. There is really nothing that gives you a clearer picture of what the city and much of America is about than watching a cluster of bloated conventioneers, recent excess testing the very limits of their pants’ sans-a-belt technology, weaving down the sidewalk along Las Vegas Boulevard while sucking on the twisting plastic straws in their two foot tall day-glo margherita containers.

Foreign Policy: Vegas Journal: Americans Are Stupid

This article was sent to me by my Fullerton correspondent. You’ve got to read the whole thing to believe how awful it is. Knee-jerk conservative and religion bashing, America hating, elitist horror at the hoi polloi–it’s almost like a parody of what a dyed in the wool red-stater thinks NPR is about. This isn’t like I have an axe to grind against NPR–I’ve been on several national NPR shows and am frequently on the Las Vegas NPR station, KNPR. I just don’t like smarmy, intellectually lazy, dishonest writing.

Here’s the funny thing–I’m not saying that no one’s ever allowed a mistake or two, but in an article whose crux is the stupidity of others, you might want to proof read, not just spell check, or you get a howler like this:

weaving down the sidewalk along Las Vegas Boulevard while sucking on the twisting plastic straws in their two foot tall day-glo margherita containers

I’m well acquainted with the football of beer, the plastic stein, and the over-sized daiquiri glasses, but I have never, ever seen someone walking down the Strip drinking a pizza. I have, on the other hand, seen plenty of folks drinking margaritas, which are cocktails featuring tequila.

I’m pretty pumped about Rothkopf’s discovery here, since I’m always looking for new ways to eat pizza. Hey, when I was in Singapore I had tuna pizza crepes, and they were among the best things–not the best pizza, but the best things–that I’ve ever eaten. So if I find the place on the Strip that sells this delicious, improbably liquefied blend of dough, mozzarella, garlic, tomatoes, and basil, I’m all in.

Comedy aside, this is just lousy journalism. I’m reminded of Orwell’s duckspeak, where orthodox followers of Ingsoc don’t even think about the words they’re saying, the just spontaneous form in the throat, like “as right wing conservatives will continue incessantly to hammer the policies of the ’80s regardless of how outdated or discredited they have become.” That’s certainly a close relative of “the final and utter elimination of Goldsteinism,” which Orwell highlighted as a particularly good example of duckspeak.

Finally, I think that Rothkopf lies–or at the very least embellishes–to prove a point. Here’s the fragment:

…at the airport, they have games of chance that guarantee that whoever plays them will lose their money… and long lines of people waiting to play.

While I can’t say definitely that there has never been a line to play airport slots, I will say that I have never seen a line at the slot machines at McCarran airport. In fact, most of the times that I go through there, the utilization rate at the slots is somewhere between 10 and 40 percent, depending on the time of day–not like this is the kind of thing that I notice when I’m in a gaming area or anything. Saying that there are “long lines” of people waiting to play slots sounds good, and it makes Rothkopf’s point a little better, but it’s just not true. If anyone has ever seen a line of people waiting to play slots at McCarran, go ahead and email me, because I’ve spent more time there than I can calculate and I’ve never seen it.

The whole making fun of Carrot Top (and his fans) thing is uber-lame, too. I mean, he’s Carrot Top. Maybe he’s not up there refuting The Critique of Pure Reason, but that’s not what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s an entertainer. Here’s how it works: You develop your schtick. You get an agent, who convinces a theater to give you a chance in front of an audience. If audiences hate your schtick, and stop coming, you don’t work much longer. If they like it, and keep coming, you get to play another day. Obviously, Mr. Top is in the latter category.

If Top’s show isn’t tinged with deep literary significance and philosophical meaning, does that mean that he–or those who come to his shows–are stupid? Absolutely not. He’s a high-energy prop comic: his job is to make people laugh, and apparently he does it better than many other people. Not everything in life has to be an intellectual exercise, tinged with irony and wit. Sex, for example, is pretty much brainless, but enjoying sex doesn’t mean that you’re stupid–it just means that you are secure enough about your intellect not to constantly remind yourself–and others–of how smart you are. Of course, Rothkopf might counter that he understands having good, non-intellectual fun–after all, this is a rugged man who white water rafts and hikes–but Carrot Top is just stupid. Why? Because he doesn’t like him, or Las Vegas. When teenagers say that everything they don’t like is stupid and everyone who doesn’t dote on them is a phony, we justifiably smirk at their precocious pretension. When “experts” do it, apparently, we call it journalism.

Wow, that got much more indignant and rambly than I originally intended, but pseudo-intellectuals lying about the city where I live will do that.

I googled Mr. Rothkopf, thinking that I’d find a 20-something recent j-school grad. Turns out he’s in his 50s, a former Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce, and a well-established Washington insider. It’s scary–really, really scary–that someone with that level of experience and influence is so contemptuous of his own country and has such a disregard for the facts.