I’m late to the Rich Sanchez story, because Rick Sanchez chose a day when this more explicitly Jewish-run sector of the media was observing Simchat Torah to say a stupid thing and get canned. The CNN host former CNN host told a satellite radio host late Thursday afternoon that “everybody that runs CNN is a lot like [Jon] Stewart;” this shortly after his interlocutor had noted that Stewart was a Jew and therefore, like Sanchez (who is Cuban-American), a minority, to which Sanchez had responded, “Yeah. Yeah. Very powerless people.” On Friday, CNN announced that Sanchez was “no longer with the company.”
It’s worth noting that Sanchez’s main patron at CNN, who gave him more airtime even as others called for him to get less, was the also-recently-fired Jonathan Klein—who is himself, shall we say, “a lot like Stewart.” Stewart will reportedly address the whole thing tonight: 11 pm E.S.T. on Comedy Central.
Conan O’Brien may have had the best take on the affair: “CNN’s Rick Sanchez says the Jews run CNN,” he Tweeted. “Ah, so that’s who we blame for Rick Sanchez.”
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.