To be fair, it wasn't Steyn taking the shot at Appalachians, it was Steyn referring to Sam Shephard taking the potshots in his play "Buried Child". I don't even recall that the play was set in Appalachia, though - I remembered it as being in the midwest somewhere.
Regardless, it was a superb analogy for the media's tiptoe-ing around the Kennedy clan patriarch's very own "Buried Woman" over the last few days. Great column.
I agree it's an indirect and literary analogy, and I don't seriously fault Steyn for it. I'm a big Steyn fan, and his figures of speech are always apt and often hilarious.
But understand, too, that the implication (found in the general "trailer trash" idea) is that poor people living difficult lives are also the moral dregs. Coming, as I do, from poor people who led difficult lives, I admit I feel the sting of the stereotype.