Last Call

Steve M. notes Rick Sanchez, formerly of CNN, was done in by his insecurities talking about Jon Stewart.

Sanchez's anger against Stewart is class-based, and, again, he focuses on speech, among other issues:

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. (Emphasis added.)

After Sanchez said this, the host of the show said that Stewart should understand ethnic prejudice because he's Jewish. Sanchez scoffed at that notion, and lashed out in a way that could destroy his career:

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]

The notion that Stewart singles out Sanchez's gaffes is nuts, because Stewart attacks the button-nosed Botoxed blonds of Fox (male and female) far more than he attacks Sanchez. If Sanchez thinks he's singled out for especially poor treatment, it's clearly because this insecurity eats away at him and distorts his reading of reality. If he thinks he's singled out by Stewart, he should talk to Megyn Kelly or Steve Doocy, whom Stewart absolutely hammers once or twice a week. But none of that justifies Sanchez's anti-Semitism in any way.

No, it doesn't.  Nothing does.   But what amazes me is that this story unfolded in 24 hours and Sanchez is fired.  Wingers are having a field day, since Sanchez worked for CNN he was a liberal, so that means Sanchez is proof that liberals are always the real racists and anti-semites, etc.

Meanwhile, CNN continues to employ Douchebag Douchebagson Erick Erickson and MSNBC continues to employ Pat Buchanan, both who have said a lot worse things while actually employed by these networks...and actually on these networks themselves.  Sanchez made these comments on a Sirius XM radio interview.

The same people who are waving goodbye gleefully at Sanchez continually excuse Pat Buchanan and Erick Erickson.  There's a bit of a double standard there.   I'm not defending Sanchez, he most certainly deserved to get hammered for that.  But if that's the bar for being dismissed from a network, then a healthy chunk of the people employed by cable news need to be looking for new work.