Jon Stewart Answers Rick Sánchez

Update, October 8, 2010: Rick Sánchez has publicly apologized for his statements during an interview this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America: “I said some things I shouldn’t have said, and not only were they wrong, they were offensive.”

Was Rick Sánchez right in saying that the American media is controlled by the Jewish lobby? Was it fair to fire him for calling Jon Stewart intolerant? Should he turn back to CNN?

Since the TV network fired anchor Rick Sánchez last Friday, there have been plenty of reactions. A Facebook group has already asked for his return. Jon Stewart himself used his appearance at an event Saturday night to refer to the controversy twice. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stewart had reassuring words for Rick Sánchez: “All he has to do is apologize to us, and we’ll hire him back.”

Last night brought the most anticipated reaction: The Comedy Central Star celebrated that Sánchez even knows his name.

There are those who have defended Sánchez, but even in the show of support there are critiques of his work. “It is hard to write a defense of Rick Sanchez, since I found his on-air persona — a dumb, confused blowhard — to be so unwatchable that I don’t think I’ve ever seen him for more than five minutes at a stretch,” writes Emily Yoffe for the XX Factor Slate blog. “However, if his bosses were going to fire him, it should have been for all the above and not for his idiotic comments about Jews running the media.”

Christopher Hitchens goes a step further, questioning the controversy: “I ask myself if the world in which I have worked for so many decades [media] is even imaginable without the presence of liberal American Jews. The answer is plainly no. 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.”

“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,” wrote the columnist at Slate.

And finally, David Letterman reviewed the controversy surrounding the dismissal of the CNN anchor, despite the fact that he “had no idea who Rick Sánchez is,” and explored 10 possible excuses for his statements.