1 Boring Old Man

CNN’s Rick Sanchez fired after explosive interview on satellite radio
Washington Post
By Lisa de Moraes
October 2, 2010

CNN fired Rick Sanchez on Friday afternoon in response to a radio interview on a SiriusXM radio show during which Sanchez called Comedy Central late-night host Jon Stewart a "bigot" and implied that the media as a whole are controlled by Jews. Appearing on "Stand Up! With Pete Dominick" to promote his new book, "Conventional Idiocy," Sanchez went on to assert that he has been the victim of discrimination at the cable news network.

"Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company," the cable news network said in a statement. "We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well." CNN, which changed its leadership last weekend, said it will telecast "CNN Newsroom" in Sanchez’s 3 to 5 p.m. time slot "for the foreseeable future." The provocative anchor had been with CNN since September 2004.

During the lengthy, gasp-inducing interview with Dominick, the subject of Stewart came up; the late-night host often ridicules Sanchez on "The Daily Show." On the Sirius broadcast, Sanchez told Dominick, "I’ve known a lot of elite Northeast establishment liberals that may not use this as a business model, but deep down when they look at a guy like me they look at a — they see a guy automatically who belongs in the second tier and not the top tier," said Sanchez, who was born in Havana, according to the bio on CNN’s Web site…

"White folks usually don’t see it. But we do — those of us who are minorities and women see it sometimes, too, from men in authority." Sanchez paraphrased what he said a CNN executive had once said to him: "I really don’t see you as an anchor, I see you more as a reporter. I see you more as a John Quiñones — you know, the guy on ABC … Now, did he not realize that he was telling me … An anchor is what you give the high-profile white guys, you know … To a certain extent Jon Stewart and [Stephen] Colbert are the same way. I think Jon Stewart’s a bigot"…

Later in the interview, Dominick noted Stewart is Jewish, which he said is "a minority as much as you are." "Very powerless people," Sanchez said, with a laugh. "He’s such a minority, I mean, you know … Please, what are you kidding? … I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they – the people in this country who are Jewish – are an oppressed minority? Yeah." In the audio, which circulated online Friday, Sanchez’s sarcasm was evident…

Sanchez ought to be able to jab back. But that’s not what he did. The operative phrase from this article is, "Sanchez’s sarcasm was evident." That was true every time I watched him. It set me to thinking about Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Kieth Olbermann, Rachel Maddow – my our people. Even at Olbermann’s most serious, when he’s saying "sir," on one of his rants, I never feel that the or any of these guys are contemptuous, disdainful, sarcastic, "nasticrats," etc. That’s what I hate about the Fox News people – primarily Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. It’s the contempt, to put it in a word – the sneer. And it was Sanchez’s contemptuousness that I didn’t like.

So, it’s not that he went after our icon – Jon Stewart – or even that he poked fun of Jews. Either of those things is fair game when done "fairly." It’s the contempt. In fact, in my humble opinion, it’s the acceptance of contempt that is the most virulent legacy of the Bush/Cheney era. Contempt for the Arab world, contempt for our prisoners of war, contempt for the countries that didn’t join our misbegotten invasion of Iraq [like France], contempt for liberals and Democrats, contempt for our Laws and International Treaties [the U.N., the Geneva Convention], and so on and so on.They modeled it in every appearance, to their shame.