This week saw the rise (fall?) of CNN’s Piers Morgan, thanks to a ridiculous shoutfest on his show Monday by radio host Alex Jones in their “debate” about gun control.

Each program since then has dealt with gun control. And each one featured Morgan, who has emerged as a loud voice in favor of more gun laws, and some guest who wholeheartedly disagrees with him.

The week-long performance led The Daily Beast‘s Michael Moynihan to dump this bag of rocks on Morgan’s head:

The Jones interview moved the gun debate not one inch; it merely provided a large platform for a paranoid extremist—and car-crash television for the rest of us. But Morgan, whose poorly-rated show has long been on life support, believed the segment a rousing success, retweeting a journalist who noted that the Jones interview received four million Youtube views in less than 48 hours. Morgan, whose American journalism career was listless and limping, saw his fortunes turn when his show became a brash, single-issue clearinghouse for critics of America’s gun laws. After years of offering a third way between the ideologues of Fox and MSNBC, at least one host at CNN has determined that it pays to be more, not less, like the cable-news competition. …

None of this should be surprising, coming as it does from a disgraced former tabloid editor and ex-talent show judge. Indeed, a quick look at Morgan’s oeuvre, which includes stints at the News of the World, which was shuttered during the phone hacking scandal, and the Daily Mirror, from which he was fired for publishing fake photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, and one understands that Morgan is incapable of nuance. …