Rich Sanchez Fired For Anti-Semtic Comments

After writing the story below I turned to CNN to see if Rick Sanchez had any comment on his comments made yesterday only to discover that Sanchez was missing from his show today. After a few calls and emails to CNN's corporate communications department, I received this note from Bridget Leininger of Turner corporate at 6:19 PM

“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.“

We will broadcast CNN Newsroom from 3-5pm for the foreseeable future.

What follows is the explanation of Sanchez and CNN "parted ways."

Rick Sanchez CNN anchor had fun putting down Jews yesterday. Sanchez was on the Sirrus/XM show Stand Up! with Pete Dominic when they they got into a discussion about bigotry.  He started with a story about how a CNN administrator didn't want him to become an anchor because he was Cuban. Then he railed into John Stewart for making fun of him. Sanchez believes that Stewart portrays him as stupid because he is Cuban. (Stewart portrays Sanchez as stupid because...well he IS pretty dumb). He goes on to say that Stewart is bigoted because of his suburban Jewish upbringing, and he (or any Jew) can't relate to oppression. That his employer, CNN is run by those Jews....etc, etc. For a guy railing against insensitivity he really is pretty insensitive.

According to Dominic's official site:

That’s when Sanchez really let his feelings loose: “I think to some extent Jon Stewart and [Stephen] Colbert are the same way. I think Jon Stewart’s a bigot.“

Pete noted that Stewart is his former boss, and pressed Sanchez to explain himself further. “How is he a bigot?” Pete asked.
Sanchez:

I think he looks at the world through, his mom, who was a school teacher, and his dad, who was a physicist or something like that. Great, I’m so happy that he grew up in a suburban middle class New Jersey home with everything you could ever imagine.

Pete pressed, “What group is he bigoted towards?”

Sanchez replied: “Everybody else who’s not like him. Look at his show, I mean, what does he surround himself with?”

Pete asked for a specific example, saying the term “bigot” is pretty strong.
“That’s what happens when you watch yourself  on his show every day, and all they ever do is call you stupid.”

Asked again what group Stewart is bigoted against, Sanchez replied, referring to Stewart in the second person:

Anybody who’s different than you are, anybody who’s not form your frame of reference; anybody who doesn’t look and sound exactly like the people that you sound [like] and grew up with. The people that you put on your show, who always reflect somebody who’s, “I’m bringing in to sit around me,” you know, who’s very different from me. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy this thing that the only people out there who are prejudiced… are the Right. There’s people that are prejudiced on both sides.

Sanchez went on to claim that Stewart’s worldview is “very much a white, liberal establishment point of view.” Sanchez added:

He can’t relate to a guy like me. He can’t relate to a guy whose dad worked all his life. He can’t relate to somebody who grew up poor.

Inexplicably, Sanchez argued, “If we’re gonna call one side bigoted, we probably gotta look at the other side and say the same thing.” This, of course, does not stand to reason in the slightest, but Pete noted that he agreed racism and prejudice are not the exclusive domain of conservatives, which Pete has stated countless times on the air

Then Sanchez starts channeling "The Elephant Man"

If I did just sit there and read the teleprompter every day, Jon Stewart would never say a word about me. He’d say I’m a good Hispanic anchor, “Way to go, you’ve done a good job, stay right there.” … I am a complex human being, I’m not some moron to be…”

We will get to the Moron thing later.  Sanchez goes on to blast Stewart for bashing CNN as much as he bashes Fox (obviously he doesn't watch The Daily Show often)

Here’s what they do. This is the game they play. “I just picked on Fox News, because they just had a bold-faced [sic] lie about something — damnit, that means I gotta find something on CNN. Oh, I know… wait, hold on, let me find, oh that Rick Sanchez, that little Puerto Rican guy. I’ll make fun of him. Do you have anything.” “Uh, yeah, last week, he mispronounced the word indutably or whatever.” “Yeah, that’s it, find me that and we’ll do a whole 4-minute segment on how he mispronounced the word arithmetic.”

Then Sanchez started talking about how little American Jews (such as Stewart) know about oppression and suggesting that Jews own the media:

“Yeah,” Sanchez snickered sarcastically at the idea that Jews are as much minorities as Latinos in the US.

Very powerless people… [snickers] He’s such a minority, I mean, you know [sarcastically]… 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. [sarcastically]

I grew up not speaking English, dealing with real prejudice every day as a kid; watching my dad work in a factory, wash dishes, drive a truck, get spit on. I’ve been told that I can’t do certain things in life simply because I was a Hispanic. My friends who are black, I’ve seen that with them; I’ve seen that with a lot of minorities. I can’t really think — although I understand the plight of Jews, and all the experiences, and the things that have happened historically for them — but I can’t say that my buddy Glen or my buddy Izzy who I grew up with in South Florida ever were prejudiced against directly simply because they were Jewish. There may have been jokes around them or about other things, but it’s kinda — you know what I’m saying, it’s kind of a different thing.

Here is the entire 20  minute segment (if you can't see the videos below CLICK HERE)



Maybe its time for Rick to have some sensitivity training, because it is obvious he is not a big fan of the Jewish people. I wonder how he would have gotten along with my wife's uncle who was a Jew who grew up in Cuba?

As for his complaints about John Stewart making him look stupid.  I believe he does that enough by himself.  Please look at the clips below and I will let you decide:






And my all-time favorite: