(Un)Conventional Idiocy

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Next on Between the Beltways Eyewitness News, a homage to an Imbecilic Anchorman. When you hear the phrase Imbecilic Anchorman, you might think back to Ted Baxter, the strohbass speaking blunderbuss from the mythical WJM-TV of Mary Tyler Moore fame. Or perhaps you recall the legend of Ron Burgundy–stay classy San Diego. No, to find an epic Imbecilic Anchorman, we need not look to the Big Screen nor TV Sit-Coms. We recognize Rick Sanchez, until lately of CNN fame.

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{video courtesy of breitbart.tv via RightScoop.com which acquired it from Glenn Beck’s Insider Extreme video feed}.

My personal favorite is when Sanchez read the cues for light banter off of the teleprompter. But it was not for that sort of incompetence that Sanchez lost his job at CNN as Sanchez was sacked for on-the-air expressions of antisemitic bigotry.

The background is that Sanchez had some bad blood with John Stewart after being repeated ridiculed on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Rick Sanchez was a on publicity tour for his new book (which is ironically titled) Conventional Idiocy. Sanchez had a lengthy interview with his friend on Sirus/XM’s POTUS “Stand Up! With Pete Dominick” so he seemed to speak in an unguarded manner.

Sanchez was trying to sell the point that as a Hispanic anchor, he was not respected as an anchor but more like a reporter such as John Quiñones. Sanchez contended that high profile white guys were respected as news figures of authority. Sanchez noted that even fake newsman like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are treated the same way. Then Sanchez lowered the boom by saying “I think that Jon Stewart is a bigot”.

The host rhetorically stood up and noted that Jon Stewart is Jewish thus is also a minority like Sanchez. This prompted Sanchez to sarcastically spew:

Very powerless people,... He's such a minority, I mean, you know. . . . 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.

This antisemitic ignorance was more than conventional idiocy and CNN terminated Rick Sanchez. Now maybe the fired anchor has more time to plug his new book, after all it’s only ranked 39,028 on Amazon’s best seller list. A more apt idea is for Rick Sanchez to collaborate with Helen Thomas after her antisemitic exile.

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