The Sad Tales of Rick Sanchez and James O’Keefe

I always hesitate to write about things that are big in the blogosphere if I think the general public wouldn’t care about it, but I’ll comment on these two things because they are about two people who have been very much in the public view.

Let’s start with Rick Sanchez. He was a CNN anchor. He hosted “Rick’s List” and served as a contributor to Anderson Cooper 360:° and CNN International. Rick has long been the butt of jokes on the right and the left. The right didn’t like his liberal views, and Jon Stewart made fun of his craziness. His tweets were legendary in their silliness. As you have probably heard, he was fired Tuesday after a radio rant where he called Jon Stewart a “bigot,” and basically said CNN was run by Jews. Read about that here.

John Stewart kept up the jokes about Sanchez being fired this weekend at a fundraiser.

What Sanchez said was irresponsible to say the least. He deserved to be fired. The things I have read in his tweets has always convinced me that he had problems. But I do feel sorry for him. This is a person after all, with a family, and his whole career just blew up in his face. I just don’t like the whole kicking someone when their down, no matter who they are. He made his bed, now he has to lie in it. But let’s leave him alone while he does that.

The 2nd thing is James O’Keefe. Best known for exposing ACORN corruption. He also recently investigated Census supervisors who encouraged pay by the hour workers to falsify their time sheets. Then there was the investigation of Sen Landrieu’s telephone system during the health care debate. He was arrested in that case. It was a pretty stupid thing to do. At least the way he did it.

Well, now it seems that a CNN female reporter wanted to interview him, and he decided to “punk” with some kind of “sex toy” boat making her report on him as a freak, and then expose her for the trick. This is his stupidest idea yet. It read more like a fraternity hoax than anything else. It reveals a great deal of immaturity. It seems to me that O’Keefe stumbled upon the ACORN corruption, and is not equipped to deal with real investigative work.

This is what happens when young inexperienced independent “reporters” try to do the job that real reporters should be doing. O’Keefe is obviously out to make a name for himself, but he needs to go back to school and learn the legal ways to expose corruption and wrongdoing and leave the “punking” to Ashton Kutcher.

Although I don’t think the general public cares much about either story, they do both illustrate unprofessionalism on the mainstream level with Sanchez, and a “citizen reporter” level with O’Keefe.

Both of these men need to go and deal with their personal problems, and find another line of work.

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