Friday, October 1, 2010

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Rick

Why, thank you, Rick Sanchez, for sacrificing your career for the sake of helping me make my point.

One of the most boring and irrelevant talking heads on CNN, Sanchez finally had something interesting to say.  Unfortunately for him, it was this:
Everybody that 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.
Yet another minority oppressed
by the International Jewish Conspiracy 
Sanchez was presumably pissed off that Stewart had referred to him as a "lightweight"—hardly  controversial for anybody who has seen Sanchez' Twitter-based "news" show.  Yes, that's right:  the Sanchez program consisted mainly of light topical tete a tete, followed by the tweeted reactions from his viewers.  This is what makes CNN such an important American institution:  where else are you offered a stream of unedited opinions from people with nothing better to do in the middle of the day than watch TV and tweet?

As a side note, there is real irony in the casting of Stewart as avatar for the entire Jewish people.  Really?  Jon Stewart?  The same Jon Stewart who changed his last name from Liebowitz, who married a non-Jewish woman, and who regularly trashes Israel on his TV show—the one from which he takes many, many, MANY days off, but not Yom Kippur?  THAT Jon Stewart?
Oops, did I say that out loud?

Well, never mind that.  To the anti-Semite, we all look alike.

Nobody coaxed, or tricked, or cajoled Sanchez into saying what he said.  The same goes for other recent paragons of bigotry such as Helen Thomas and Mel Gibson.  In truth, they couldn't wait to say it.  Gibson was drunk—in vino veritas—Thomas was asked a simple question about Israel, and Sanchez was simply reminded that Stewart is Jewish.  Their beliefs lie just below the surface, and what's more, they see nothing wrong with them.  No doubt the career-ending opprobrium that followed was a complete surprise:  "...but, all my friends feel the same way!"

What is the real lesson here?  Simply this: anti-Semitism is returning to the mainstream.  The anti-Semitic disease, underground for over half a century, has mutated, adapting to the post-Holocaust era by posing first as Israel-basher, then as anti-Zionist, before finally exploding into a malignant and virulent strain of pure anti-Semitism.

No comments:

Post a Comment