Joel Stein's  Aug. 24 Time magazine cover story on Vegas continues to draw reactions, mostly negative, in Vegas. Stein's previous coverage of Vegas for Time over the years has been positive. And, in truth, his article offered no new news that has not been reported in some form locally and nationally. Stein only put it all together and found memorable characters, examples and stitched them into a full and sad explication of life in Vegas now. 

Not surprisingly, [Sheldon] Adelson and [Steve] Wynn mostly talk about themselves. If they drank too much of their own Kool-Aid, overextended themselves, or misread the many signs of an approaching recession, they can't bring themselves to admit it. Thousands of employees have been cut loose up and down the Strip, and Stein touches on the ravages of the recession.

Smith went on to call the piece "well worth reading."

Stein hears the city's optimism but he's not quite convinced.... Instead, Stein might have pursued this path. I am among those who believe Las Vegas will come back strong. Las Vegas is a pulsing beacon for the human animal, a place that has taken full advantage of our insatiable desire for risk and release.

Is Schumacher serious? "A pulsing beacon for the human animal" negates the empty rooms on the Strip despite never-before-seen bargain pricing, massive debt loads being carried by the resort companies and the global recession that Stein presents as among the problems facing Vegas. (There are plenty more, like the unemployment rate.)  I think someone has been spending too much time reading "The Secret," and it isn't Stein. 

Schumacher walks around the issue that Stein is not at all wrong about anything by offering the faint praise of calling Stein's accurate reporting "workmanlike." Then Schumacher gets all misty with nostalgia, noting Stein's supposed inferiority to Kurt Andersen's "Time" cover story on Vegas from 15 years ago. Of the Andersen piece, Schumacher writes: "The piece, beautifully written by Kurt Andersen, was prompted by the Strip megaresort boom and reflected the anything-goes optimism of that era." Optimism is good and pessimism is bad; I get that. But the facts are different now than 15 years ago. Does Schumacher get that?  It seems the height of foolishness to expect the same story in 2009 amid foreclosures, declining visitor volume and with so many of the resorts so deeply in debt.

I'm not concerned about anything other than the world knowing that Las Vegas is a great place, and anyone who doesn't agree with that, including newspaper reporters, can drop dead.

It isn't often that a mayor who spent much of his career representing accused mobsters and accused killers (folks whom I guess he thinks made Las Vegas a "great place" and whom he now wants a museum to commemorate) suggests that a reporter should die. Was that a threat? Certainly it has more potency as a threat than Sen. Harry Reid's rather pallid suggestion that he wished a local newspaper would go out of business. That one made national headlines. But this is an actual death wish for those disagreeing with the mayor or even reporting facts that are not positive enough for the mayor's taste.

Anyway, I called Stein, an old friend and colleague, to get his reaction to all the local responses his story has generated. In fact, it turns out, Stein, who became a father while reporting the Vegas story, had not known about most of the reactions after it appeared, and he was a bit surprised by it all. "I don't think it was a negative story," Stein insists. He loves Vegas and remains upbeat about its future despite all of the serious problems.

As for Goodman's comments, Stein blames himself for not interviewing Goodman for the Time story. Stein has interviewed Goodman before for other stories on Vegas. In fact, this is his second cover story for Time on Vegas. And Stein gets what local press already knows: The mayoral ego likes to see the Goodman name in any story on Vegas. Stein feels that vanity in part is what underlies the mayor's attitude toward this particular article by him. Stein says:

He is totally right. You should not ever go to Las Vegas and not talk to Oscar Goodman. That was insane of me. I should have called him. I should have kissed his ring. I was stupid not to. But I already sat down with a lot of local politicians and was writing about all of Vegas and so I did not have space in the story to interview him. But I am a fan of Oscar Goodman. I think he is super smart. But his job is to promote Vegas. It is rude to say this but he mayors like a defense lawyer and I had so many other people doing that for him in the story that I did not need him to do it.

Photo: Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman; credit: Sarah Gerke

UPDATED

I have to call your attention to Steve Friess' blog today. As regular readers know, Friess writes a column for Las Vegas Weekly where I am on staff, and also does a variety of Vegas-based reporting for everyone from USA Today to New York Times, and even a few European media outlets. But being a freelancer, sometimes his best work turns up on his own blog, Vegas Happens Here, as he hits upon stories even without an assignment.

In an earlier item on another topic, Friess noted he was puzzled by a sentence in a Review-Journal article, and questioned the paper's "decision to allow an anonymous source to issue a potentially devastating allegation against U.S. Sen. Harry Reid."  The allegation was that Reid was calling banks to get more than $1 billion  loaned to MGM-Mirage for the completion of CityCenter.

(As a side note, had any bank listened to Sen. Reid and made the loan last week, the bank might be upset to read the news this morning that MGM-Mirage's partner in CityCenter, a Dubai World subsidiary, filed a lawsuit against MGM-Mirage thus adding further complications for the ever more expensive project.)

So, was the Senate majority leader actually asking banks to loan money to Vegas casinos? Isn't putting a billion in Vegas real estate right now sort of risky? Did these banks he contacted get bailout funds?  What impact does a call from the Senate majority leader have on a loan application?

Anyway, on his blog today Steve Friess has been updating his pursuit of these answers. His reporting is going to turn this into a national story. And, interestingly, this all began with a single part in a Review-Journal article that struck him as insufficiently explained and buried. This is one of the great freedoms of blogging. But it must be said that, like me, Friess has the advantage of being part of mainstream media; therefore his questions are harder to ignore by the people involved than most bloggers who call with awkward questions. And that is a pity, because this is exactly the sort of story that might have fallen through the cracks without a diligent blogger like Friess picking up on the potential significance and starting to do his own reporting.

* An earlier version of this item, based on a newspaper report that has since been revised, offered a motive for the litigation. This item has therefore been revised to remove that unsubstantiated claim.

Las Vegas usually ignores politics, though recently I was thinking characters like Anne Coulter are really meant to be Vegas headliners. Is what she does all that different from Las Vegas paragon Don Rickles?

There have been exceptions. In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, for example, a few bar televisions in resorts had the news on 24/7. This was during the brief period when all airline travel was banned and there were probably practical reasons for stranded tourists to keep an eye on the news.

But the Obama phenomenon has affected the Strip in an unprecedented way. Starting at 8 this morning the inauguration will be shown live on screens stretching from Planet Hollywood across the resort's Miracle Mile shops. And no, this did not happen when the last president was inaugurated.

Of course, this being Vegas the resort is hoping to go a little further and according to Robin Leach, "It’s likely to be the longest seamless wall of TV ever assembled and will be submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records!"

Photo: Sarah Gerke

I get that to most of the country I do not live in a city so much as a metaphor. Las Vegas: narcissism, unrestrained consumption, outlandish behavior, sycophantic service, all underwritten by games of chance favoring the house played standing on the ugliest of carpeting. Whatever the latest evil plaguing the country, you can be sure someone will parachute into town and see Vegas as the most extreme expression of that evil.

Last night I went to a bar at the Orleans Casino to watch the debate with activists from Nevada's McCain campaign to report for Las Vegas Weekly (where I am on staff).  The celebrity at the event was the governor of Hawaii. I was told she was too busy to do an interview for Las Vegas Weekly. This happened as I watched her giving an extended interview to the local Fox affiliate. Fox News was also the network the local Republicans chose for watching the debate on the bar's dozen or so screens (except for the one discreetly turned to the Dodgers game).

Republicans in other states might find it odd that some of their number in Vegas meet in a casino to play video poker at a  bar while cheering on their conservative candidate. But in Nevada, social conservatism is very weak; instead, the Republican Party here has a thick libertarian streak. That meant in every single interview I did after the debate, when I asked these Nevada Republicans what issue matters most to them, all agreed: a deep opposition to more taxes.

Regardless of party affiliation, Nevada's prominence as a coveted swing state has caused a focus on this election like I have never before seen here among locals.  Usually, Vegas resorts and employees are forcefully politically neutral. (The exception being Vegas gadfly Sheldon Adelson, who I think it is fair to describe as a major donation source for conservative groups.) For example, none of the cocktail servers at the debate viewing party at Orleans yesterday would  answer a question about how well the Republicans were tipping them. As a tourism city, Vegas does not want to offend. Even the comedians tend to stay clear of political material. But with this election cycle, that is changing. And now politics, if not actual partisanship, is pervading Vegas from the comedians all the way to the topless bars.

Exhibit one: Club Paradise across the street from the Hard Rock is holding an "official" Sarah Palin lookalike pageant on Oct. 23, advertised with a flier that includes a doctored photo of the candidate. I have no idea what is meant by "official" in this context, except that I was assured yesterday that it does not mean  the event is in any way endorsed by Nevada's McCain-Palin campaign. No surprise there. According to the manager of Club Paradise: "We have invited girls who resemble Sarah Palin from clubs all over the country to join us for the pageant."   

The press release notes: "The guests will cast their votes based on the contestants' debating skills in addition to how well they match up to Sarah Palin in a swimsuit.  The winner of the contest will be awarded over $10,000 in cash and prizes, including a trip for two to Washington D.C. for the presidential inauguration in January 2009." This is politics Vegas style.

(Illustration courtesy Club Paradise)