After Piers Morgan's show was cancelled in February, America got a bit of a respite from his particular brand of insufferableness. But thanks to the magic of the internet and a woman named Monica Lewinsky, Piers is back, writing for the Daily Mail Online about the internet hate Monica has received, the internet hate he himself has received, and how Lewinsky still deserves what she gets.
In his latest piece, PIERS MORGAN FOR MAILONLINE manages to be both sympathetic to Lewinsky and totally dismissive of Lewinsky's qualifications (which she outlined Monday) as a voice against internet bullying. But, more importantly in the eyes of Piers Morgan, he is sympathetic to himself.
Sympathetic to Monica:
So yes, I absolutely agree with Monica that something must be done to stem this tide of filth. Social media giants like Twitter and Facebook need to radically and speedily change their current laissez faire attitude to a growing, despicable menace.
Sympathetic to Piers Morgan:
The internet can be a brutal, unforgiving colosseum of rage, hatred and vile, disgusting abuse.
I speak as something of an expert in this area given that I was recently reported to be the most abused public figure on Twitter in Britain.
Had he just left it at that, Morgan would have written a mostly harmless, if idiotically self-involved piece. Instead, he went on, expressing further sympathy for Lewinsky and other women who get attacked online, before making it clear that that sympathy had been expressed only so that he could then argue that Lewinsky hasn't taken enough personal responsibility for what she's done:
Where I find myself at odds with Ms Lewinsky, however, is her claim that she, personally, was 'shamed' by the internet.
...
If you're a 22-year-old intern working at the White House and you embark on an affair with your married President, then most people would probably say the shame-ometer probably starts right there and then.
As Morgan notes, after her speech, Lewinsky was inundated, unsurprisingly, with people making gross jokes about her and Bill Clinton (and worse). But according to Piers, Lewinsky brought that upon herself and is demonstrating "extraordinary self-deceit" by pretending she's some sort of victim.
But I find it pretty distasteful that she received a big fat fee to make a disingenuous speech about how she's been such a victim of internet shaming - and then received a standing ovation from the audience.
Especially as just one hour before the speech, she joined Twitter – thus inevitably inviting a fresh avalanche of the very abuse by which she professes to have been so 'destroyed'.
Piers doesn't say what he thinks Monica should do instead (crawl into a hole indefinitely?). But what a gift PIERS MORGAN FOR MAILONLINE leaves us with: so many arguments in one little piece.
Images via Credit Star Shooter/MediaPunch/IPX and Getty