IF BILL O'REILLY WERE NEW MEDIA, WE WOULD'VE NEVER GOTTEN RID OF HIM

As we all should have predicted, Milo Yiannopoulos's disappearance was brief and temporary -- he's got a comeback in the works:

Milo Yiannopoulos is plotting his comeback, allegedly to take place at UC Berkeley, whether university administrators like it or not.

"In light of recent controversies, I am planning a huge multiday event called Milo's Free Speech Week in Berkeley later this year. We will hold talks and rallies and throw massive parties, all in the name of free expression," Yiannopoulos said on his Facebook page Friday.

Yiannopoulos wouldn't say who is backing the effort, financially or otherwise....

This story is from The Hollywood Reporter, and I'm struck by the fact that the key question is "Which wingnut billionaire is bankrolling your comeback, Milo?" Of course, "Who's your sugar daddy?" is a key question throughout conservative politics. Are you a pet project of the Koch brothers? Of Sheldon Adelson? Of Robert and Rebekah Mercer? (Breitbart and the current president of the United States answer yes to that last one.)

All Yiannopoulos needs to stage a comeback is the Internet and an infusion of cash. That's the advantage he has over Bill O'Reilly. The Murdoch family wasn't O'Reilly's patron -- the Murdochs needed O'Reilly to continue generating a pile of advertising revenue, and now O'Reilly is an embarrasment because the Murdochs need to look like reasonably well-behaved corporate citizens if they want the British government to let them buy the portion of Sky TV that they doesn't already own.

A Net-based O'Reilly would have been impossible to uproot -- we'd have never been rid of him. So we'll probably never be rid of Yiannopoulos.