Piers Morgan Wasn't Rejected Because He Comes from England.
He Was Rejected Because His True Nationality Is The Isle of Smug.

Jim Geraghty objects to the silly notion that Americans "reject" British people for their Britishness. This is of course silly; Americans tend to love British people. As someone (perhaps Geraghty) notes, we automatically assign an additional 20 points of IQ to anyone speaking with a British accent.

Charles C.W. Cooke has a simpler reason for Americans not liking Piers Morgan: For the same reason British people don't like Piers Morgan. He's an insufferable twit (sp?).

[I]nsofar as Morgan has made an impression on the country at all, his brief foray into American television appears to have served primarily to extend the territory in which he has thus far rendered himself unpopular. Back in the old country, Morgan’s name is synonymous with arrogance and with overreach, and he is known less for his interviewing skills and show-business acumen than for allegedly hacking the telephones of celebrities; for retaliating against even minor criticism by siccing paparazzi on the speaker; for having published “calculated and malicious” fake photographs of British soldiers abusing prisoners; and for considering nothing whatsoever to be more sacred than his insatiable ambition.

On a British talk show, guests were playing a game in which they were invited to define words. Steven Fry was offered the word "countryside."

This is a home-run slow pitch; the only question is whom you wish to make the target of the joke. Fry chose Piers Morgan.

Thanks to @slublog for that.

Back to Cooke:

The definition of “countryside,” Stephen Fry once quipped on the BBC, is “to kill Piers Morgan.” The audience roared. Americans are merely coming late to a story at which the Brits have been rolling their eyes for years.

...

Given that Morgan is an obviously repugnant personality, that he willfully fails to grapple with the topics at hand, and that he is physically incapable of allowing a guest to upstage him, he was always going to have his work cut out.

In some sense, he always did. Confused as to why people weren’t laughing at his ill-timed joke on the television series, Have I Got News for You, Morgan complained in 1996 that “last week Eddie Izzard said it and everyone roared with laughter as if it was hilarious.” “Yes,” the satirist Ian Hislop retorted, but “people like him.”

Piers Morgan was a tabloid editor, more notorious than famous. That's... something. It is a job. It is a competitive field. So it's something, to be the top editor at a London tabloid.

But is that really enough to justify this level of arrogance?

John Lott noted how very rude and arrogant Morgan was during his interviews with him-- so rude, in fact, a pro-gun-control liberal wrote Lott to tell him he had behaved with admirable restraint, and he'd be buying Lott's book to read the arguments Morgan hadn't permitted him to make.

Who is this guy? What the hell has he done, exactly, to justify this level of self-regard?

There are people who are on TV because they are accomplished in some other field; then there are people who are on TV because they went into TV.

Piers seems to be of the latter sort. Yes, he was a tabloid editor; but his career there is marked by scandal. The hacking scandal, the faked pictures.

Even if he were a great tabloid editor, I think most people would say that being such is not precisely the summit of human aspiration.

But he wasn't even that.

So he's one of those guys who's on TV who wants you to take him very seriously because he's on TV.

His backup argument would be: You should listen to me, because I'm not just on TV, but I'm good at TV. Like Rush Limbaugh is, undoubtedly, good at talk radio.

But he's not good at TV. He never was. His ratings have been disappointing throughout his term, before they turned downright bad.

So why exactly does Piers Morgan think anyone should listen to him?

I've linked the below about five times already but here we go again: Below, Adam Carolla goofs on Piers Morgan, just as his show was starting.

Carolla's problem is that Piers Morgan is filled with swagger and arrogance, but actually has very little to swagger about.

Related: The Daily Caller reports that Tommy Christopher has been fired from Mediaite, though they don't know why.

I'm not a fan but I take no particular pleasure in him losing his job. He was more of an annoyance than a threat.

Mediaite now confirms Christopher is out, without saying if he was fired or chose to leave, and without explaining anything about the why of it, whoever it was who made the decision. They wish him luck, and seem to imply that they're just pursuing a general changing-of-the-guard sort of strategy, as they welcome aboard some new writers while saying farewell to Christopher.

posted by Ace at 02:26 PM

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