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http://standupwithpetedominick.com/blog/cnns-rick-sanchez-jews-like-bigot-jon-stewart-run-cnn-the-networks/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 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.
At the end of the first exchange of the day about Stewart’s alleged bigotry, Pete pushed Rick to back off a bit, and Sanchez eventually conceded:
"All right, I’ll take the word bigot back; I’ll say prejudicial (sic) — uninformed."
Later in the interview, Sanchez pushed the discussion again, returning to the idea that Stewart is “prejudiced,” though again backing away from the word “bigot.”
"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…”
At least part of Sanchez’s gripe with Stewart, he said, is that Stewart picks on Sanchez for superficial on-air failings instead of substantial offenses like those committed by Fox News personalities, and the Daily Show does this in order to be seen as criticizing CNN as much as it criticizes Fox News Channel. (Regular watchers of The Daily Show know that Fox takes far more of Stewart’s media-savvy ribbing than CNN does, but Sanchez claimed Stewart sought parity in comedically critiquing the two leading cable news operations.)
"Here’s what they do. This is the game they play. “I just picked on Fox News, because they just had a bold-faced 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.”
When Pete defended Jon Stewart as “just a comedian,” Sanchez shot back, “That’s a cop-out.” (I happen to agree with Sanchez on that one.)
When Pete Dominick suggested Jews (such as Stewart) have at least some sense of what it’s like to be an oppressed minority, Sanchez seemed to make the claim that Jews run CNN and the news business in general and that Stewart thus did not in fact know what it was like to feel the sting of prejudice.
“Yeah,” Sanchez snickered sarcastically at the (show host's) 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)"
That’s right, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez basically suggested that Jews have run the media.
(?? This is the part I don't get. I can certainly see real Anti-Semites hiding behind such remarks, but only because such remarks are within the pale of acceptable discourse. It's not OK to discuss overrepresentation of one minority versus another in the ranks of the media, if 100% of the executives involved are Jewish or whatever, and none of them are Hispanic? It's not like billionaire WASPs don't own everything and are playing us all against each other -- time for the 2 minutes hate against villain of the week Rick Sanchez!)
Sanchez also suggested Jews in general, at least of his generation or younger, are not discriminated against, (!!!) though they might hear the occasional Jew joke now and again.
"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."
“No, I don’t,” Pete replied.
“I can’t see somebody not getting a job somewhere because they’re Jewish,” Sanchez added.
“Well, then you’ve never been to Nebraska,” Pete shot back to lighten the mood.
(huh? People in Nebraska are Anti-Semitic? Why didn't this statement get Pete fired?)
The transcript ends with the transcript editor laughing and joking about how Sanchez got fired, and how Pete and his family want everyone to thank them for getting a job on CNN at the same time Sanchez lost his by shooting off his mouth about overrepresentation of jews in the media, instead of a more appropriate whipping boy such as blacks or arabs. Stay Classy!
Unfortunately this is a subject that only progressive Jewish bloggers are allowed to tackle head-on, and it's a career ender for them, too. Besides which, with the collapse of the foundations of progressivism in the Democratic party, it's a real chore to find progressive bloggers who aren't busy reacting in defense of the Administration and attacking left populists as racist and anti-semitic, too.
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