media spats

Piers Morgan ‘Couldn’t Give a Toss’ About That ‘Dick’ Andrew Sullivan

Piers Morgan== An Evening With RALPH LAUREN== Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York== October 24, 2011== ?Patrick McMullan== Photo-JIMI CELESTE/patrickmcmullan.com==
Photo: Jimi Celeste/?Patrick McMullan

Piers Morgan has caught no shortage of flak for the gun-related interviews he’s conducted over the past couple of weeks, in particular his explosive chat with the rant-prone conservative radio host Alex Jones, who started the White House petition to deport Morgan. Andrew Sullivan called Morgan’s recent string of guests “a rolling freak-show designed entirely for ratings,” and Larry King, who Morgan replaced, said a bit more diplomatically that Morgan’s show “is a lot about him as much as the guests.” When Morgan sat for an interview with Politico’s Dylan Byers, he called Jones “the smartest booking we’ve ever made,” and said the buzz about that interview “exploded this issue back onto the agenda for the entire week leading up to what Obama did today,” meaning the president’s gun-control proposals. Morgan was also far less diplomatic than his critics when asked what he thought of them.

Andrew Sullivan is a dick,” Morgan told POLITICO. “He’s an extremely bitchy, deeply unpleasant, rather confused individual who for whatever reason despises the very spittle I put on the floor. Well, good luck to you, mate. But I couldn’t give a toss.”

On Larry King: “I’ve tried to be very respectful about Larry; he’s a legend, and I feel very proud to have followed him. But I think he just slightly needs to button it, because he’s talking nonsense. The reason we’re different is, I’m a journalist and he’s not. Larry isn’t a journalist, never has been.”

The guy certainly doesn’t mince words, does he? At least this time he used words, unlike his last response to King, on Twitter, which consisted of one letter: “Zzzzzzz.”

Piers Morgan: ‘Andrew Sullivan Is a Dick’