Vanity Fair raises the question: Can we send Piers Morgan back to Britain?
Britain's best-known ex-editor is the subject of a scathing 2000-word piece in the magazine of the New York smart set
In the article itself, Wolcott muses,"Many questions torment America in its dark night of the soul, questions more urgently pressing, and yet it must be asked: How did we get stuck with Piers Morgan? Who is he, why is he here, is he returnable?"
He says Morgan "dreams of becoming a name brand whose every move can be converted into a sales opportunity"and adds, "Who is to say he won’t succeed? I, for one, have learned never to bet against naked unadulterated shameless relentless ambitious careerism that can eat through steel wool."
It's all pretty powerful, not to say poisonous, stuff. A cartoon with the article describes Piers as "Uncle Sham".New York magazine, holding the jackets as they say, headlined its comment, however,"James Wolcott Plays Right into Piers Morgan's Hands". Piers, it said, was "like a steam engine of ego: Feed his fires with public attention of any kind, and he'll barrel forward even faster, billowing out a plume of black, stinky hot air into the sky in an effort to draw in even more eyes."
The Wolcott piece was "precisely the stuff that Morgan loves," said NY mag. " Attention! Of any kind! So to make sure everyone saw Wolcott's piece, Morgan took to Twitter to link to it and respond. In 140 characters or fewer: My response to James Wolcott @vanityfair : No, I'm not. So maybe remove head from bitchy, pompous, humourless a**? He also tweeted two pictures of James Wolcott looking fat. NY Magazine concluded: Advantage: Morgan.