One of the most offensive articles Rolling Stone has ever published is in the current issue (I suppose it’s current) with Weezer on the cover. It’s an article about the comedian who calls himself Larry the Cable Guy. Well, ostensibly, it’s about Larry the Cable Guy. Really, though, it’s about how much Rolling Stone hates Republicans, NASCAR, Christians, conservatives… you know; me.

I’ll say up front that I’m not a fan of Larry the Cable Guy. The guy just isn’t funny. His routine is tired, boring, and simple. He’s recycling the same old demeaning Ernest T. Bass, Hee Haw crap. He’s never once made me laugh. My list of favorite comedians would include plenty of southerners, like the late Texan Bill Hicks and South Carolina born Chris Rock... but I also loved Sam Kinison and Mitch Hedberg, and currently really enjoy Nick DiPaolo, Greg Giraldo, and Eddie Izzard. If your comedy isn’t going to give me anything to think about, you’re wasting my time. All Larry the Cable Guy gives me to think about is how much he annoys me.

In an article about the guy’s rising popularity, Rolling Stone scribe Gavin Edwards doesn’t even try to contain his hatred of Red State America, and uses Larry the Cable Guy to paint us all with the same broad strokes. The thing is, by demonizing Larry, Edwards is probably helping the comedian’s career. Ever since America woke up to the evil of the way Lenny Bruce was railroaded, it’s become standard that the comedians who offend the establishments the most are the most successful. Because Larry offends the liberal PC sensibilities of the left (as represented by Edwards and Rolling Stone), they’ve attempted to turn him into Hitler. Instead, they may be crafting him into today’s Lenny Bruce. That’s a shame, considering that the guy really isn’t funny, really isn’t insightful, and could really end up cashing in on the way the left apparently hates and fears him.

Rolling Stone sums him up this way:

Meet Larry the Cable Guy -- the slightly dim, often racist, completely redneck, 100 percent Republican alter ego of Dan Whitney.

So right off the bat, at least, you know what you’re getting into if you read the article. Republican, according to Edwards, translates as dim, racist, and redneck. Alright, then.

If you don't live in a red state, you've probably never heard of him

Wow. Wow. What a telling aside. What must Edwards imagine Red State American to be? Three or four corn-intensive, perpetually 1955 pockets of backwardness, where Bush is revered as God and we don’t want no smart-aleck Nuuu Yaurk Jeeews tellin’ us what to laugh at, I suppose. Isn’t it wonderful to be summed up so neatly, so succinctly, and with such disregard? Since this article is intended as a primer on the evil that is Larry, it’s clearly not intended for those demon Red-Staters who’ve already heard of him. Rolling Stone must see their readership as primarily a Blue State constituency. I wonder how their circulation numbers would change if those of us whom they assume don’t read the magazine suddenly just stopped reading it. That might be the only way that Rolling Stone might get even a glimpse of the reality of what Red State America is.

Within a couple of lines, Edwards shows that he isn’t content to just imply what Red State America is. He has to let fly with as many direct insults as he can. This is how he sums up those Red Staters who enjoy Larry’s material:

They may not think of being a Larry fan as an expression of cultural identity, but of course humor requires a shared set of assumptions. In this case, the worldview includes the beliefs that Hilary Clinton is Satan, The Dukes of Hazzard got canceled because Hollywood hates country boys, and NASCAR is the world's greatest sport.

When is the last time you saw a demographic of America so succinctly pigeon-holed? Of course, white, southern, middle class America is the last group that it’s safe to deride with that kind of cultural bias. Can you imagine a journalist summing up Chris Rock’s fanbase like this:

Humor requires a shared set of assumptions. In this case, the worldview includes the beliefs that the man is keeping us down, that “Method & Red” got canceled because Hollywood hates real niggas, and that basketball is the world’s greatest sport.

Can you even imagine reading such a thing? Of course not. But cultural race-specific prejudice like what Edwards wrote and Rolling Stone published about Larry’s fans is absolutely fine.

Edwards enlists other comedians to help him flog Larry. Just as comedians who worked clean in the 50’s wanted nothing to do with Lenny Bruce, comedians who work PC in this decade maintain an academic distaste for Larry and his fanbase. Note that I’m not remotely suggesting that Larry and Lenny are comedians of the same caliber… but you might get the idea that they are when David Cross gets so dead serious and starts waxing political like this:

"He's good at what he does," concedes fellow comedian David Cross. "It's a lot of anti- gay, racist humor -- which people like in America -- all couched in 'I'm telling it like it is.' He's in the right place at the right time for that gee-shucks, proud-to-be-a-redneck, I'm-just-a -straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel-selling-ring -tones act. That's where we are as a nation now. We're in a stage of vague American values and anti-intellectual pride."

Granted, some of this might be simple jealousy and professional envy on the part of Cross. David Cross is best known today as a secondary character on Arrested Development, but he’s tried his hand with mixed results (and little success) at stand-up comedy as well. He might be best known for Mr. Show with Bob And David, an HBO sketch comedy program that produced about 15 hours of material (about 45 minutes of which was actually funny). It’s not all jealousy with Cross, though. The disdain and disgust he feels for Larry and the Red Staters who’ve made him successful just drips from his quote above. David Cross is bitter, angry, and paranoid. It’s an interesting to note, by the way, that bitter, angry paranoia is a characteristic he’d probably ascribe to Larry’s fanbase.

Edwards had to be disappointed by the blurb he got from Lewis Black:

"Once he discovered that the Larry character could talk about anything, it took on a life of its own," says Lewis Black of The Daily Show. "But how do the rednecks hear it as a compliment?"

Well, exactly. Black seems to get it. This redneck, at least, doesn’t hear Larry’s act as a compliment. It’s like a white minstrel show… a white southern guy getting rich by perpetuating the stereotype that smart white southerners have struggled to cast off for ages. That’s what burns me the most about this. Larry isn’t our Lenny Bruce. He’s our Uncle Tom.