Indeed, insofar 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. 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.
Being a left-of-center television host is both extraordinarily difficult and extraordinarily easy. It is difficult in that the sheer number of people lining up to fill the void makes sharp elbows, a grasp of media politics, and a reasonably large ego necessary for one to secure the job in the first instance; it is easy in that, in order to succeed, one really just has to be moderately winsome, to sense which questions to ask, and to intuit when to shut up. 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.
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