Full transcript of Sanchez remarks -- from Pete Dominick website

[Leopolds Ghost]

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.

[CreekDog]

1. so you think saying that Jews run the media is a subject that should be discussed

and nobody should lose their job for saying they think they do?

:wtf:

bye bye Ricky boy... :eyes:

:banghead:

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. No, that they are overrepresented vs. other minorities in media. Prominent Jewish progressives have

have written about this and apparently you want them to lose their careers too.

[CreekDog]

5. So you're saying we should discuss whether there are too many Jews in the media?

that's what "overrepresented" means doesn't it?

yikes man. think about what you're saying.

or perhaps you have.

[Leopolds Ghost]

16. The only reason I've heard about this topic is from progressive Jewish bloggers.

Do you think it's a good thing for 60% of basketball players to be black and 40% of media executives (or whatever the exact percentage) to be Jewish? It's ethnic and racial profiling in the industry that can only have negative knock on effects for people like Sanchez, even assuming he's not an actual Anti-Semite.

[Dorian Gray]

21. If they are the most talented

and sought after workers, then I have no problem with the percentage you are listing. Why do you?

[Leopolds Ghost]

24. Saying Jews are more talented than, say Hispanics is the sort of discrimination that is at issue.

Do you also assume Asians are inherently smarter and harder working than white people and African Americans are naturally athletic meat-heads?

Because that's what a lot of white Americans believe. They merely lump Jews in with the Asians instead of with the Blacks and the Irish like in the '30s.

[WinkyDink]

12. "Over"-represented? What percentage would you deem just right?

[Leopolds Ghost]

26. Could have been WASPS or Armenians. only becomes an issue due to media consolidation.

New Republic is an example of a publication that is historically staffed by Jewish liberals (now by Jewish conservatives, thanks to that jerk Marty Peretz). That doesn't mean they don't hire other folks, but you know what to expect, just like you know what to expect enrolling at Howard University. Similarly, its smaller scale competitor the Washington Monthly was historically staffed by Catholic liberals. The difference is that publications like these are rooted in a place and time, e.g. the staff of MAD magazine were mostly Jewish because NY's magazine publishing industry in the 50s was mostly Jewish. Someone with a Jesuit education would have a statistically higher chance of getting a job as an editor or publisher of a publication that had a lot of other Jesuit educated folks, thanks to recommendations. That's no longer true: now we have global corporations running the entire media and electing an encrustation of executives to represent them to the public at large, most of whom are tokens themselves and incompetent publishers whose only job is to report on the fiscal bottom line. There's no longer any need for it, to be blunt.

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. The substance of Rick's remarks does not add up to the hatred impugned on him by the show host

People were asking what idiot would claim Jews were an oppressed minority and then hide behind that statement to attack Jewish people in the media. Well, it turns out the show host claimed that Jon Stewart was an oppressed minority like Hispanics. Of course this is leaving aside the fact that Rick Sanchez and Jon Stewart are lily-White Europeans and have white skin privilege.

[Taverner]

7. Try being a Jew in the heart of Fundie Texas

I have been told, it can be a dangerous experience

[Leopolds Ghost]

17. Yeh, they hate everyone down there so don't feel too alone. :-)

[frazzled]

4. Dominick never suggested Jews were an "oppressed" minority

He just said Stewart, as a Jew, was a minority, too. Which, of course, is true. Jews make up less than 2% of the US population. It was Sanchez who turned the discussion into one about whether or not they were "oppressed."

Sanchez should remember that it was not so long ago that Jews were indeed an "oppressed" minority in this country. In my father's generation, after the war (in which he dutifully fought), many cities had redlining that prevented Jews from buying houses in certain neighborhoods. (This was still being discussed in Minneapolis, where I lived in the 90s, where Jews were not allowed to live in the suburb of Edina and elsewhere.) There were Jewish quotas at many universities, lest too many of this ethnicity get into the best schools. My father, who had an advanced degree in chemistry, was turned down for jobs at two major pharmaceutical firms. He ended up having to go into the family business, wrecking cars and selling auto parts. Earlier, during the war, despite the fact that he scored the top score on officer's training test, he was not given a place in officer's training school--he often wondered if it was because he was Jewish. When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I often felt the "otherness" of being a Jew in the Midwest. No, no one called me names to my face or anything like that, but I definitely felt how different we were from our friends and neighbors. Everyone else had one of those nice shiny hams on Easter. We went to my grandmother's and had a big platter of boiled tongue. (Yuck!). My own daughter, when she was in second grade or so, came home crying about why she was the only Jewish kid in her school, and we were the only family in the city that did not celebrate Christmas. We joined a temple for the first time.

So yes, being Jewish is indeed being a minority in this country. No, we don't run the media. Rick Sanchez was on CNN because a Jew (I presume), Jonathan Klein, hired and protected him there, despite some dissatisfaction with him. Klein recently departed (was fired?) as president, and Ken Jautz (not a Jew) replaced him. Jautz is the one who fired Sanchez.

[notesdev]

6. Jews are a minority

but not a protected minority.

Oddly enough, Jews are one of the only minority groups that gets zero points in the diversity lottery.

If Sanchez is so concerned about bigotry maybe he ought to do some investigative journalism into that!

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. Most are white ethnic (Ashkenazi), like Italians, Germans and Irish, who don't get points either

Italians and Irish used to be majorly discriminated against, now they get to brag about how far they've come because the reality is white ethnics of all stripes have a combination of white-skin privilege and the advantage of an ethnic social network to advance in life. The reality is Irish, Jews and Italians all have a major leg up where they used to be at a disadvantage, one reason why the New Deal has fallen apart -- there's no longer any commonality of purpose between white ethnics and people without white skin privilege in this country.

Other immigrant groups simply have a combination of the latter and a natural statistical advantage in career prospects from having the resources necessary to make it to America (one reason why America takes in so few political, as opposed to economic, refugees is that the latter are usually not members of the underclass in their home country while the former usually are.)

Of course, part of the problem is that Rick Sanchez has white skin privilege too, so his argument that he was being singled out as Puerto Rican falls apart.

[notesdev]

25. I couldn't even tell

that Sanchez was hispanic, looking at his picture. He looks pretty much just like every other primped TV news talking head.

On the point you raised, why do you suppose that the white ethnicities have ethnic social networks and nonwhites do not?

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. Well, that's an interesting question.

I would say this is one area where Jewish community DO stand out simply because we're talking about such a small part of the population, and well-educated, that one can maintain a social network, maintain cultural traditions, and community whereas Irish and Italian social networks have disintegrated as soon as discrimination against them ended, simply because there are so many Irish and Italians that they've become so culturally integrated with the WASP community as to be indistinguishable outside a few places like Boston and NY. But it certainly gave other white ethnics a leg up in the 1960s and 1970s, especially with race discrimination still being widespread. This is one of the things that fueled the "angry white man" movement of Reagan Democrats, I think -- a newfound sense of entitlement and literal feeling of "where's my white skin privilege?" among groups (white Catholics and others) that had been historically discriminated against and were climbing the economic ladder in the middle of a recession, with de-industrialization rendering traditional working-class ties (and entire working-class ethnic communities) obsolete and minorities moving into those areas as the white working class abandoned them.

The trouble you have now is the same problem all over again, with Eastern European Asian and African immigrants looking down on black people (some of the most racist groups in America towards black people include immigrants born abroad, especially African immigrants) and casting their lot with the Democratic party -- AS ECONOMIC RIGHT WINGERS because that is what the Democratic party equivalents are in their home country. In some parts of Eastern Europe, Ronald Reagan is considered a liberal icon who brought them freedom, rock and roll, all that good stuff. It's the real Left parties who are, y'know, on the left. So now we have a technocracy composed of economically conservative ethnic immigrants (New Democrats) who have no problem exercising their own social networks but disapprove when other groups such as blacks do the same, who are opposed to a WASP underclass of faded gentry and self-entitled bigots (Republicans) some of whom (Tea Perty) are just beginning to wake up and realize that they are no longer middle-class and neither party gives a shit about them.

Unfortunately, the leaders of their coalition are bigots who want to take the Republicans even further to the right, and criticism from the right has silenced criticism of the party elite from the left, fatally eroding the populist / progressive movement to the point where I see the US entering a 50-year period of stagnation of some sort.

So the sense of ennui I feel is actually a sense that upper-middle-class Jews and other ethnic Dems (not only white ethnics) are abandoning traditional populism and the New Deal coalition, with prominent thinkers and bloggers on the "left" even ascribing populist and anti-establishment sentiments as inherently fascist and right wing. This started with the New Republic which has spent 15 years openly advocating and lecturing Jews to abandon the left. Stewart is certainly no critic of the Administration.

The reason this is relevant to the Sanchez issue is that many of these economically conservative Dems come back around to citing ethnic minority status as a badge of social progressivism that immunizes them from charges of being fundamentally establishmentarian or elitist. As if to say "How dare you accuse me of being insensitive to minorities, I'm Dominican-American myself, and as a historically discriminated minority, I have to say: it's not the Administration's fault you don't have a job. My parents made good in this country!"

[WeekendWarrior]

8. I still don't think this guy

should have been fired over these remarks. Maybe some education and sensitivity training followed by an apology, but guys like Beck and Limbaugh have said far, far worse than this and nobody but those offended really seems to give a shit. Why is it when a liberal shocks everyone with his underlying prejudices (which we all have) he's got to go. But it's okay for a blatant, bigoted, unrepentant asshole to stay on the air?

I think all those chortling over Sanchez's downfall need to remember this the next time they say something supremely stupid. Because you will. Sooner or later.

We all do.

And when you do, ask yourself -- did Sanchez really need to be fired over that?

THAT SAID, Sanchez was an idiot whose show blew chunks. I couldn't stand to watch him.

[Maru Kitteh]

10. Really? Going on a radio show and claiming that your employer and the whole of the media

are run by Jews and implying that they're largely bigoted doesn't strike you as a job-ending move?


I'd call it a no-brainer and richly deserved.

[WeekendWarrior]

14. No, I don't.

Especially when you listen to the crap that guys like Beck and Limbaugh and O'Reilly spew.

I think Sanchez was pissed off about something and got stupid. You haven't ever gotten pissed off at work and railed at your employers? Do you really think you need to be fired because of it?

Like I said, I think Sanchez is an idiot in general, but I'm be damned if I'll celebrate his firing over this. I suspect there may be more to this firing than we know about. That it's quite possible Sanchez's job was already on the line because of the changing of the guard at CNN and he knew it. This just made it easier for the powers that be.

And, sorry, but I don't think it's much of a stretch to think that people -- no matter what their background -- were bigoted against Sanchez. A LOT of people are bigoted against morons.

[KharmaTrain]

22. He's Representing His Employer

When Sanchez went on the show, it was under the title of Chicken Noodle News "reporter", thus he was, by proxy, speaking on behalf of his employers not as a private citizen. He's entitled to his opinions, no matter how stupid and inflamatory they are, but in this case he crossed the people who sign his checks and this was the grounds on which he was terminated. He also took some shots at his own company...not a think employers take a liking to, either.

[WeekendWarrior]

31. Sorry, I don't buy that argument

When a New York Yankee goes out and says something stupid, nobody thinks he's representing the New York Yankees. Sanchez wasn't there on behalf of CNN, he was there to promote Rick Sanchez. How are they supposed to announce him -- Rick Sanchez, random television personality?

I think there's a lot more to this than meets the eye and I'll be curious to see what Sanchez says if he ever makes a statement.

Call me crazy, but I'll always support an idiot's right to be an idiot, even if I don't like or agree with what he's saying. If you're going to fire Sanchez for having a lousy show with lousy ratings and coming across like such a complete, clueless buffoon that viewers are tuning out in droves, that's one thing. But firing him for expressing his moronic opinion is something else altogether.

I'm not sure when the world starting getting so fucking sensitive, but my solution to such statements is simply say, "What a jerk" and change the station. Works every time.

[KharmaTrain]

33. CNN Did And That's What Matters

I also support his right to be an idiot and you nor I know if there were other things that happened in the psat that would have led to this. Bottom line is the company has its image to uphold and if they feel an employee is damaging that image they are full within their rights to terminate. My bets are there's a clause in his contract (as there are in most) that he must not doing anything that could be embarass the network and in their case they felt his tirade went over the line. This isn't a "democracy", this is business and CNN is well within their right to terminate for any reason they see fit. You can agree or you have the right to not watch that poor excuse of a network (like I do).

When Jimmy the Greek made his crack about blacks in the NFL, CBS dropped him like a hot rock. Remember, not only did Sanchez blast my fellow Jews, he took some wicked shots at his own employer. As would be said, you don't crap where you eat. Yesterday I posted that I bet Sanchez will be back in some form. He's not a mean guy or a wingnut, just stupid. This isn't the first time his mouth has gotten himself fired from a job. I'd even guess he may end up on a Progressive talk station.

[WeekendWarrior]

34. You're right, CNN has every right in the world to fire him, but

I have every right in the world to criticize them for it, especially when a lot worse has been said by other television personalities and they've skated. I mean, let's face it, it's not like CNN is some kind of noble enterprise.

[blondeatlast]

35. Indeed. nt

[WinkyDink]

13. Take it up with Corporate America. Rick's IMAGE IS TOAST. TV exists to PLEASE ADVERTISERS. Get it?

[WeekendWarrior]

15. So why is Beck still on the air?

Why is Limbaugh still pumping out the shows?

Why is O'Reilly still spewing venom?

Pleasing advertisers means ONE thing. Making them money. They don't give a shit about anything else.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. Other forms of racism still sell advertising $$, unfortunately.

The problem with the whole "too many Jews in entertainment" thing is that it originated as (naturally enough) a far-right anti-semitic critique, implying that Jews were a foreign ethnic group bringing liberalism into a country that supposedly hadn't had it before, since Jews in Hollywood were still discriminated against and fought hard to ensure better portrayal of other disadvantaged groups in the media, which is what led to the Hollywood Red Scare and blacklist. This helped the far right destroy the populist movement, since working-class whites were far more left-wing in the 19th century than the average Democrat is today, by casting liberalism in the 1930s-1960s as a "black and jewish" thing. Jews in the Roosevelt administration were the people who succeeded in putting Civil Rights on the agenda when the New Dealers (many of whom were raging Anti-Semites who worked to prevent the US from interceding in the Holocaust, read Michael Beschloss' book The Conquerors about FDR). The trouble is that since 9-11 there's been a major political turn around in the upper-middle class, especially in the Jewish community. Liberal (Jewish or non-Jewish) reporters and entertainers are now just as blackballed as right-wingers. The new centrist line being advanced by media consolidation is economically conservative, socially liberal, hawkish on foreign policy, and technocratic as opposed to meritocratic. It's only when there are only 5 corporations controlling the media that over-representation becomes an issue (for liberal watchdogs who have written about this issue, most of whom are Jewish themselves, since you can't really discuss it without coming across as an Anti-Semite if you aren't Jewish. Just like you can't really discuss over-representation of black people in sports if you're not black.)

[WeekendWarrior]

30. I don't think Sanchez was

doing the whole "too many Jews" shtick. I think his point was that there are a lot of Jews in media -- which, frankly, is true -- and because of this, they can't be considered a powerless minority. Obviously that discounts a few thousand years of hate and oppression, but then Sanchez isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the pack (which he has demonstrated on a number of occasions) and he just said something really, really stupid.

I still don't think stupidity is a firing offense. And I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't been planning to get rid of him anyway and this just made it convenient.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. Well, one bright spot is it's no longer ok to make similar remarks about blacks (it was 10 yrs ago)

So we're making some progress.

[sabrina 1]

9. Well he was right about one thing ~

"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.”

There's no doubt the MSM bends over backwards (see Anderson Cooper and others when reporting on the Shirley Sherrod rightwing lies

[WinkyDink]

11. "Different," "Hispanic," "little," "Puerto Rican,".....I think Ricky's problem is inside himself.

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. The little part makes me think he's compensating for something

No, not Freud, but some deep seated self worth issue. Then again, working hard all your life to become a color commentator on a news channel (not a prestigious position vis a vis "actual journalism") and being made the but of jokes can rub some people the wrong way. Maybe he felt like he had become CNN's "trained monkey". Dance, monkey, dance!

[olegramps]

27. Jews were definitely discriminated against.

I am old enough to remember when Jews were looked down on, however, I don't believe they suffered to the extent that Blacks and Hispanics have endured and most importantly continue to endure. Perhaps there is more to the story as to why he was fired. His firing seems a bit over the top for making a stupid remark that I am sure that he regrets.

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. I think the situation is muddied by Rick Sanchez having some kind of nervous breakdown.

I think Sanchez is trying to make social commentary in a way that makes him come across as bigoted and Anti-Semitic, due to some sort of personal/career trouble, like when Kramer from Seinfeld flamed out several years ago

[Malikshah]

32. *tongue in cheek* Be careful or you, too, will be branded

for addressing the elephant in the room.
Dominick's reference to Stewart's being Jewish was a logical fallacy within the context of the argument. Sanchez stepped in it and went with it in his usual ham-handed stupid fashion. I, for one, am happy he is no longer on the airwaves. At the same time, the anti-semite issue is wrong-headed in its vitriol.