CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez is no longer a CNN anchor.
That’s after a radio appearance in which he made comments that makes me wonder why anyone could possibly be surprised that he’s no longer a CNN anchor.
Sanchez was a guest on the Pete Dominick’s SiriusXM radio program, and spoke about the discrimination he has felt as a Cuban-American. He then made discriminatory remarks about others, specifically Jews.
Nice little double standard he’s got going on there.
According to CBS News, Sanchez called Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart a bigot. When Dominick suggested that Jews, like Stewart, are also a minority, Sanchez responded, “Please, what are you, kidding? … Yeah, a very powerless people.”
But wait, it gets worse!
He then said that the people running his network are “a lot like Stewart,” who he described as being bigoted against “everybody else who’s not like him.”
He later backed off from the bigot comment, but called Steward prejudicial “against anyone who doesn’t agree with his point of view, which is very much a white liberal establishment point of view.”
And in doing so, Sanchez seems to have established himself as at least as prejudiced as he accuses Stewart of being.
CNN released a statement saying, simply, that Sanchez was no longer with the network, and that they wish him well. When you go on a radio program accusing your bosses of discrimination before a national audience, is it really any surprise when those bosses decide they’re not enthralled with you?
And if he really feels that way about his bosses, why would he really want to work for them? And if he wanted to work for them, why would he say such a thing to the public without following it with his immediate resignation? Wouldn’t it be a mark against his integrity to make such remarks and then go to work for these people as if nothing happened?
Unfortunately, remarks like that might make it hard for him to find other employers willing to give him a shot, no matter what their background might be.
Last night, in between working late, checking on a sick puppy and going back to work, I got take-out from a Mexican restaurant in North Charleston. I got there just in time to see a waitress having a meltdown after apparently just having been fired for taking a break.
She launched into a verbal assault on the manager of the restaurant, right there at the cash register, within earshot of a couple of diners on that side of the restaurant, claiming that the owner had authorized the break in question, and demanding all of her salary plus her tips right that moment.
She peppered her tirade with profanity that no one wants to hear at a family restaurant, apparently without regard that the people she had formerly been employed to treat with respect could hear.
In doing so, she proved that she wasn’t remotely suited for the job from which she’d just been let go.
She ended the exchange by threatening some unspecified legal action come Monday, promising that she had friends at the labor board. This, someone should have pointed out to her, was laughable: if she really had such connections, they surely would have pointed out to her that South Carolina is a “right to work” state, meaning that employers really don’t have to have a specific reason to let you go if they feel it’s not working out.
And, with no disrespect intended to anyone who has even considered working in food service, if she had friends in such high places, is a relatively lower-end Mexican restaurant really the best she can do?
Sometimes, keeping your mouth closed at the right moment can help you accomplish so much more than opening it at the wrong one. More people should learn this.
Both cases, but especially Sanchez's, remind me of the old adage, "It's better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt." But the few times I've watched Sanchez's show, he hasn't exactly seemed like the sharpest tool in the shed.