Stewart-Sanchez smackdown!

Stewart-Sanchez smackdown!
By Howard Kurtz
Copyright by The Washington Post
October 5, 2010
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/howard-kurtz/2010/10/stewart-sanchez_smackdown.html?hpid=topnews

Boy, you call that Jon Stewart a bigot, he punches back!

Well, maybe punch is a bit strong.

Stewart poked back at Rick Sanchez over the ex-CNN anchor's "extremely pokable show." You had a sense that Jon wanted to get his licks in but was wary of kicking an overcaffeinated television personality when he's down.

The Comedy Central funnyman did allow himself a serious point: Sanchez, in his radio rant against Jews last week, suggested that Stewart had a coddled upbringing in suburban New Jersey. Sure, said Jon, whose parents were divorced when he was young, "the fortunate son of a single mother in the education field."

It would be a tad unfair to play clips mocking a man who just lost his job, Stewart indicated -- but then he did anyway. In fact, he admitted that he regretted the "Daily Show" doesn't air on Fridays and he had to wait until after the weekend to fire -- ah, slap -- back.

Then Stewart played a clip of himself at a weekend taping for a fundraiser, taking a mild jab at Sanchez -- and derided the media for its breathless coverage: "Stewart Slams Rick Sanchez" (New York Daily News) and similar headlines (like my post-ironic one above).

If CNN fired Sanchez "for making some intemperate statements and some banal Jew-baiting, I gotta tell you, I'm not even sure Sanchez believes what he was saying," Stewart allowed. He then played a clip of the Cuban-born Sanchez denouncing bigotry. So after several twists and turns, he took the high road, sort of.

As for Sanchez, he of the zillions of Twitter followers, radio silence. But according to one report, his wife posted the following on her Facebook page:

rick apologized to jon stewart today.they had a good talk. jon was gracious and called rick, 'thin-skinned.' he's right. rick feels horrible that in an effort to make a broader point about the media, his exhaustion from working 14 hr days for 2 mo. straight, caused him to mangle his thought process inartfully.

I'll say.