Christopher Hitchens: Reinstate Rick Sanchez!

Christopher Hitchens is calling on Jon Stewart and others in the media to join him in urging CNN to reinstate Rick Sanchez.

In a Slate column Monday, Hitchens defended Sanchez's controversial comments that the media is run by Jewish people.

"I ask myself if the world in which I have worked for so many decades--the intersecting and overlapping world of the news media, publishing, the academy, and the think-tank industry--is even imaginable without the presence of liberal American Jews. The answer is plainly no," Hitchens writes. "Moreover, I can't think of any other 'minority' of which this is remotely true, unless it were to be the other minority from which I can claim descent: people of British or Anglophile provenance."

Hitchens wrote that Sanchez "didn't descend into saying that there was Jewish control of the media, but he did imply that liberalism was linked to a single ethnicity" and added that "there is nothing criminal about this."

He connected Sanchez's abrupt firing to those of Octavia Nasr from CNN (after her kind words toward a late Hezbollah leader) and Dr. Laura Schlessinger (following her N-word rant) and said that, together, these incidents "suggest a network system that cares only about playing safe and avoiding 'offense.'"

Over the weekend, Stewart (who Sanchez called a "bigot" before discussing Jewish people at large) joked that "All [Sanchez] has to do is apologize to us [Jews], and we'll hire him back."

Hitchens called on Stewart to make good on that comedic claim, and join him in urging CNN to reinstate Sanchez:

The best way to demonstrate the hidden influence of the chosen people would be for Jon Stewart and others to join me in calling for Rick Sanchez's reinstatement. If it then didn't happen, it would help us understand who really pulls the strings around here

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Comments

[martintillier]

07:40 PM on 11/04/2010

" I might not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it", Voltaire. Christopher is right, a dangerous precedent is being set by the people who wish to hear only what they already agree with and who seek to punish and silence those with whom they disagree. What is the problem that censorship is the solution to ? If someone says something I do not like, so what ? To be "offended" is not an argument against anything, it is barely a position, the obsession with not causing offence is so pervasive it is threatening to suppress all dissenting speech. Who are the arbiters of what is "unacceptable" ? I do not wish to listen to only what someone else decides is "acceptable for me to hear, I want to hear the "unacceptable", the "offensive", because I am a grown-up, I can take it, even when someone is trying hard to "offend" me, it is pretty much impossible, I don't take to heart the words of bigots, racists and fascists, why should I ? " Sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never harm me" An old,old saying that is very true for me, and for Christopher, as it should be for all grown-ups.

[Aion]

05:12 PM on 10/18/2010

In the USA, you have freedom of speech as it pertains to the government. But you don't have freedom of speech as it pertains to your job. The net result of this is that only those who are independently wealthy effectively have freedom of speech.

[argved]

05:08 PM on 10/14/2010

CNN was going to throw this ratings anchor overboard anyway, I question the timing of their action but not the end result.

[Marlene Long Cyrus]

11:29 AM on 10/12/2010

Rick Sanchez is a Great newsman and should never been fired!! I thought Americans had the freedom of speech!! Alot of the other one's get by with much more!! No more CNN NEWS for our family!!!!

[qaan]

01:41 AM on 10/15/2010

They do have freedom of speech outside of their workplace. And your company can fire you for almost anything. Sanchez did something that his company felt might tarnish their reputation. They fired him, but it might not have been the only reason. Personally I never thought he added anything of interest to the news.

[namdlogd]

03:57 PM on 10/11/2010

The point Hitchen's was trying to make is as moot/mute as Sanchez actually is at present.

[truthisneeded]

02:47 AM on 10/11/2010

Rick Sanchez according to CNN

http://yfrog.com/62sanchezcnnj

[longlivethenewflesh]

02:46 AM on 10/08/2010

I love Hitch, but this isn't a First Amendment thing. CNN is a private company and has the right to ace its employees over speech that would be protected from government censorship. CNN, however, is not the government. CNN fired Rick Sanchez because he's a bit of an airhead with lousy ratings who, after all that, embarrassed the network with his statements. If Mr. Sanchez had something interesting to say, CNN would have stood by him after his silly remark Jewish media conspiracies--after all, Pat Buchanan is still hanging around NBC, isn't he?

There is no shortage of smart, hard working, highly qualified, photogenic Cuban Americans in Florida and Georgia. CNN ought to hire one of them to take the place of Mr. Sanchez.

[truthisneeded]

02:49 AM on 10/11/2010

yes technically you are right, there is no protection for US journalists from abuse and retaliation from corporate propanda mandates and retaliation.

But principlewise it is kind of sad that Bewkes, Jautz, Walton and Kent of CNN can get away with this kind of unprofessional. unAmerican, and childish conduct.

[teainthesierras]

02:26 AM on 10/08/2010

What rubs some people of color the wrong way is that their housing loans, college applications, and credit applications are still turned down in scandalous numbers only because of their skin color, while a group of white people claims special oppressed status even though, today in the U.S., no remedy is needed to make them "equal." Many Jews continue to be minorities because they want to be. Watch Spike Lee's Katrina documentaries and think again what it means to be a minority in America.

[noeffect]

12:15 AM on 10/08/2010

Jewish people are disproportionately represented in America among the very wealthy, top positions in corporate power, and academia.

This is because of a very strong family ethic and dynamic, a HUGE emphasis on education, a strong cultural emphasis on "success," and a good deal of family and cultural loyalty.

If you object to their prevalence in such positions, then adopt their successful strategies, out-compete them, and replace them. Otherwise, quit whining.

[EF3]

07:37 PM on 10/07/2010

You expect Jon Stewart to rush to Rick Sanchez's defense and have him reinstated at CNN, Hitchens? That's not his responsibility. It's CNN's. And they decided he wasn't worth having around anymore.

I'm sure if you told that directly at him, Stewart would bring out his "Go F**k Yourself" to sing you a melody.

[busman]

03:21 PM on 10/07/2010

Totally agree,Hitchens.

[vetxcl]

02:33 PM on 10/07/2010

only political appointees can be reinstated. is there an inference?

[juaqin mendoza]

02:08 PM on 10/07/2010

CNN should be fired and not Sanchez.
CNN is a BIGOT channel!

[AAKAlan]

12:39 PM on 10/07/2010

Nah, he should stay fired.

Hitchens, and many others, are parsing Sanchez's words as though he were a great Elizabethan poet, word-by-word and line-by-line.

In doing so, they seem to have missed the big picture. And that is the very fact that Sanchez felt the need to point out John Stewart's Jewishness, and the large number of Jews in media in defending his opinion that he should be considered a "first tier" reporter.

That smacks of paranoia, and a deeply-held belief that the Jews were conspiring to prevent Sanchez from ascending to his rightful position of honor.

Therein lies the true anti-semitism, the very same mental leap that dictators have used for thousands of years - blaming Jews for their own misfortunes and failures. Most unfortunately, that paranoia has often resulted in the massacre of Jews in many countries over many centuries.

There is no way that such a person can report news or even opinion without an extreme bias, and hence, he needed to be fired. I'm glad he's gone.

[noeffect]

12:18 AM on 10/08/2010

Absent the claim of paranoia, I agree with most of this.

What you're calling "paranoia" may be nothing more than needing an excuse and a scapegoat. "They would accept me if I were one of them," rather than, "I would be accepted as first tier, if I ever proved I had the chops for it." Which, sorry, he never did.

[ScabNainz]

09:46 AM on 10/07/2010

With all apologies to Hitchens, CNN should not hire Sanchez back. The reason Sanchez *should* have been fired is that his show was pretty effing awful.

[Stephen Benoit]

06:46 PM on 10/08/2010

Better than this Elliot Spitzer trash that's on now. I make sure to change the channel on my cable box even when the TV is off because that show is so horrible I don't want CNN to get any kind of hint that I watch it at all and don't want to risk some kind of false signal.