Rick Sanchez gets canned

Rick Sanchez was canned from his job at CNN after remarks he made on a radio show.

One set focused on Daily Show host and producer Jon Stewart. Here's a transcript I made of the roughly four-minute excerpt available online. (I've heard there were two co-hosts of the show; since I don't know which is which, I've credited anyone other than Sanchez as "Host.")

Rick Sanchez: I think Jon Stewart's a bigot. I think he looks --

Host: You think Jon Stewart's a bigot? Hold on, now we're gonna get into it. Jon Stewart's my old boss, my friend --

RS: Yeah, I think he's a bigot.

Host: How is he a bigot?

RS: I think he looks at the world through his mother, who was a schoolteacher, 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 that you could ever imagine --

Host: What group was he bigoted towards?

RS: Everybody else who's not like him. Look at his show: I mean, what does he surround himself with?

Host: Listen, he picks on Jews all the time --

RS: Mmm-hmm, yeah.

Host: He's a Jew. He focuses on them, I think he overcompensates to some extent, I always noticed that.

RS: Yeah.

Host: He goes after himself and people like him --

RS: By the way, let me --

Host: -- and everybody else. I totally -- I disagree with you and I defy you to give me a specific example.

RS: Let me give you an example of what I mean by that, by the way. I don't necessarily think --

Host: That's a pretty strong word, calling Stewart a bigot, calling anybody a bigot, give me an example.

RS: That's -- well, that's what happens when you watch yourself on his show every day and all they ever do is call you stupid. You see --

Host: Well, if he's bigoted against the ignorant, fine. If he's bigoted against the apathetic, and he's being elitist saying others are stupid, but what groups specifically -- call someone a bigot, against who?

RS: Anybody who's different than you are, anybody who's not from your frame of reference, anybody who doesn't look and sound exactly like the people 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 mean, I'm sorry, but I just don't buy this thing that the only people out there who are prejudiced, all right, the only people out there who are prejudiced are the right. There's people who are prejudiced on both sides.

Host: But you're not giving me a specific example. You're saying he's bigoted toward people who aren't like him? His guests come from every -- he has the most right-wing --

RS: I think, I think --

Host: Don't you point your Sharpie at me, Sanchez.

RS: [laughs]

Host: Don't you take your Sharpie out.

RS: I think Jon's show is essentially prejudicial. I think --

Host: Against who?

RS: Against anybody who doesn't agree with his point of view, which is very much a white, liberal, Establishment point of view. 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.

Host: He can't relate to --

RS: No, he can't.

Host: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's a stand-up comedian.

RS: No he's not. According to Time magazine, he's the guy most Americans trust for news.

Host: Whatever. He's a stand-up comedian.

RS: But it's not "whatever"! It's --

Host: No it's not! You just said he can't relate to people like you! Rick, Rick, hold on, Rick. I'm a stand-up comedian. I've been a stand-up comedian for fifteen years. It's a really, really difficult job. It's filled with failure, it's filled with travel, it's filled with hard work. We might not be out there doing physical labor like your dad did, but I don't think it's fair to define --

RS: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no --

Host: He works very hard, and I've done it, he puts in twelve hours a day on that show --

RS: You're right, you're right --

Host: -- and his staff respects him, and I don't agree with -- I don't know his parents --

RS: You're right, you're right. I'm not saying --

Host: -- but I've worked for him --

RS: No, wait, wait. You misunderstood me. I'm not saying that he doesn't --

Host: You just said he can't relate to people who work hard!

RS: He can't relate -- no, he can't relate to what I grew up with! Absolutely not!

Host: But that's not fair to say because he can't -- because he didn't have your life experience, he's not somehow on your level. That's not his fault. We can't just say --

RS: No. It's that he looks at me as not being on his level.

Host: [dismissively] Aaah.

RS: Yeah, "aaah."

Host: I think you're holding a grudge because he picked on you or something.

RS: No, I'm telling you, I can see it --

Host: Didn't you fire a bomb at Colbert last week?

RS: I can't remember, did I?

Host: Didn't you take a shot at Colbert? You guys are crazy.

RS: I must have at some point. But yeah -- look, my point is very simple: I see stuff O'Reilly and Glenn Beck do, and I say, "Wow, that's very discriminatory, that's very prejudicial." And I look at stuff that the Colbert -- and Jon Stewart do, and I think, "Wow, that's very prejudicial." So we have a tendency to only look at one side -- I'm saying we ought to be able to look at both sides. That's all I'm saying.

Host: I certainly agree with that, but here --

RS: If we're going to call one side bigoted, we probably gotta look at the other side and say the same thing.

Host: No, I'd be careful with the word "bigot."

RS: All right, I'll take the word "bigot" back and say the word "prejudicial." "Uninformed."

So what is his beef with Stewart? My guess is that this sums it up: "It's that he looks at me as not being on his level."

The Daily Show has made fun of Sanchez on a number of occasions (according to the New York Times, more than twenty times in the last five years). The bits always made Sanchez look foolish, at best. I can understand Sanchez being sore about that. By making him the butt of jokes, Stewart is implicitly setting himself above Sanchez. That's how I'd feel, anyway, and that's what I think Sanchez meant by "not being on his level."

Moreover, a single Daily Show skewering isn't terribly damaging: it's forgotten within a short time. But being mocked more than once leaves the impression that you and your newscast are to be taken less seriously than your competitors and peers. Every fresh jab reinforces that impression, and it's all but impossible to change it after a short time.

For those in the media who criticize Stewart, I suspect it's more than a little frustrating that they can't really engage him on an even playing field. He can mock their failings as journalists, but if they attempt to turn the tables on him he can always retreat to the impregnable fortress of "I'm a comedian, not a journalist." Is he being disingenuous? Maybe. The line between satirist and activist is blurry: no two people can agree on where to draw it. If you pick on someone different every night, it's satire, but if the same targets keep coming up, what then? Is it their fault for continuing to behave absurdly, or are you grinding an axe? Are you still a satirist, or have you become an advocate with a comic streak?

What Sanchez said about Stewart wouldn't have gotten him fired, though, in spite of the ease with which one could interpret "Everybody else who's not like him" as code for "Gentile." (Note that Sanchez was not the one who first mentioned that Stewart was Jewish in this conversation.) No, it's pretty clear that it was the following that made CNN act. (Again, this is a transcript of the excerpted part of the show available online.)

RS: I just think it's important that people who are not minorities understand that those of us who are -- and very few of us will say the things that I've just said -- are actually more complex than they think we are and we get them.

Host: Stewart's -- Stewart's a minority as much as you are.

RS: He -- he -- come on. How is he --

Host: He's Jewish.

RS: Yeah, very powerless people. [laughs]

Host: Whoa.

RS: "Ooh, he's such a minority" -- please! What, are you kidding?

Host: He's -- you're telling me that --

RS: 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 -- [sarcastically] yeah.

Host: They have a history of oppression, no?

RS: No question about that.

Host: They can't relate to that?

RS: I grew up in Miami! Every one of my best friends was Jewish. What are you talking about?

Host: They can't -- they can't relate to that --

RS: But to tell me --

Host: A Jewish person doesn't always have a constant fear in the back of their head [inaudible] the Holocaust?

RS: I think his father could -- I think his father could.

Host: I think every Jewish person feels that way.

RS: I hope so.

Host: Of all the Jewish people I talk to -- I have a good buddy of mine, he's so paranoid about this whole mosque thing because it is -- and you hear Bloomberg and other Jews coming out and defending it because it's "when are they coming for us?" again.

RS: Yeah.

Host: So I disagree with you.

RS: I think you're right.

Host: And I'm not Jewish, and I'm not Puerto Rican. I have had every --

RS: But just to -- hold on a minute. Just because someone's Jewish they're not capable of being prejudicial? Is that what you're trying to say?

Host: No, no, no. I'm saying, just --

RS: 'Cause if that's your only defense --

Host: No. I'm saying Jewish people can relate to oppression --

RS: I don't -- I just don't think -- I'm not -- when I say that about someone like Jon Stewart, somebody way out to the left, that they can be prejudicial, I'm not saying it has anything, the fact that they're Jewish or not Jewish, first of all. I mean, you brought the whole Jewish conversation into this. I don't think Jewish has anything to do with this. I don't think you're less apt to be prejudiced or more apt to be prejudiced because you are or aren't Jewish.

Host: I brought it in because you brought in my -- your ethnicity.

RS: I'm talking about our differences in the way we grew up in our lives, yes.

And thus endeth a career at CNN.

I'm disappointed Sanchez couldn't make a sound argument that Stewart is prejudiced in some way. I'm a big fan of The Daily Show, but that could and probably does blind me to its failings, especially to any biases that Stewart might have. It would have been enlightening to hear somebody who isn't a fan, but who watches Stewart nonetheless, give a different perspective on him and his show. As it is, though, Sanchez's complaints merely sound like sour grapes.

At least the give-and-take between Sanchez and the host(s) gave me food for thought.

What does "minority" mean in the United States these days? Is it merely a catch-all for "non-Caucasian," or does it imply "disadvantaged," or does it literally mean that the group is numerically smaller than some other group?

If a group is a minority because it is "disadvantaged," and it achieves a measure of success (however one chooses to define that), is it still a minority group? For instance, the Irish once were disadvantaged and could fairly be described as a minority, but today no one thinks of them in that way. When and how does a group go from being a minority to not being one?

Is "success" measured by income, or fame, or elected office, or something else? Is the success of a certain percentage enough to declare a group successful, or does it depend on the degree of success, or both?

Finally -- and this is not to excuse Sanchez's uncivil remarks -- did Stewart pick on Sanchez unfairly? I was as amused as anybody by The Daily Show's jokes at his expense (always, as far as I can remember, inspired by Sanchez's own gaffes), but was he really so much more risible an anchor than, say, the obnoxiously voluble Chris Matthews?