Rick Sanchez

CNN's 7 pm Eastern hour program John King USA was the only program on Monday and the following morning on Tuesday that mentioned the March for Life in Washington, DC. Anchor John King devoted only 11 seconds to the pro-life demonstration, and omitted crowd numbers and footage from the March. CNN.com's write-up on the annual event downplayed the number of attendees as merely in the "thousands."

King led his evening program with a brief about an Illinois court ruling that former Obama aide Rahm Emanuel was ineligible to run for Chicago mayor. After playing a sound bite from Emanuel, the CNN personality then gave moved on to the March for Life, and added illegal immigration to it as an "emotional issue:"

On Tuesday's John King USA, CNN's John King issued a prompt on-air apology minutes after a guest on his program used the term "crosshairs" during a segment: "We're trying to get away from using that kind of language" (audio available here). This action stands in stark contrast to an incident over a year earlier where former anchor Rick Sanchez took four days to apologize for using a unconfirmed quote attributed to Rush Limbaugh.

The firearms term appeared during a panel discussion about the race for Chicago mayor with CNN contributor Roland Martin and former journalist Andy Shaw, who is currently the executive director of the Better Government Association, a watchdog group involved in Illinois politics. Twenty-four minutes into the 7 pm Eastern hour, King asked Shaw about former Senator and mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun's claim that she was the most qualified candidate in the race: "Can she make the case- you can say Rahm Emanuel- you don't want him as mayor, but he's been a congressman. He's been a White House chief of staff. He's been a White House aide. Carol Moseley Braun- have more experience, more credentials?"

Shaw underlined his point that the Braun and the other mayoral candidates were going after Emanuel by using the sniping term:

[Video embedded below the page break]

On Tuesday's Parker-Spitzer on CNN, ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer ironically worried that too many of his fellow former politicians, who are also contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, are on Fox News: "Never before in our history...has one media outlet with one coherent ideology had almost a monopoly on...half of the presidential nominees and controlled one political party this way."

The disgraced former politician of Client Number Nine infamy raised the apparent problem during the first part of an interview of former MSNBC personality and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams. After noting that "Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and John Bolton...[are] all running for president and, perhaps more important, they all work for Fox News," Spitzer highlighted a quote from Dick Morris, who stated the 2012 race for the Republican presidential nomination "will come to resemble American Idol, where we watch the candidates perform and vote on who we like best."

CNN, a network known for its regular liberal bias, touted its supposed objectivity versus its competitors in a new ad which premiered on Tuesday evening. The ad graphically associated Fox News with the Republican elephant and MSNBC with the Democratic donkey, and claimed, "If you want to keep them all honest, without playing favorites, the choice is clear: CNN, the worldwide leader in news."

Yahoo! News's Michael Calderone, in his Wednesday article on the new ad, quoted from CNN political director Sam Feist, who claimed that their ad "simply states the obvious: We're the one cable news channel that doesn't advocate for one political party or the other." Calderone continued that "CNN's nonpartisan anchors have struggled against their more opinionated counterparts. Campbell Brown acknowledged her 8 p.m. show's low ratings against Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in her May announcement that she was leaving the network."

[Video of the ad below the jump]
 

On Wednesday's Larry King Live on CNN, liberal comedian Jon Stewart bashed Fox News, labeling their "fair and balanced" slogan a "complete lie." Stewart also stated that he thought the network was "wrong" and that "they've built... [a] really effective political organization," not a news organization. The comedian also lamented how Democrats have "faced a relentless campaign of hyperbole that they are tyrannical socialists" [audio available here].

Stewart appeared for the entire hour on King's program. Forty minutes in, the CNN host asked his guest, "What do you make of Fox?" The comedian, who earlier promoted his upcoming supposedly moderate "Rally to Restore Sanity," initially gave a mostly complimentary reply, though included his "wrong" label of the network, but continued with some criticism on CNN:

Fired CNN anchor Rick Sanchez was granted an online Q&A Monday on The Washington Post website. Sanchez still finds it unfair that he would be knocked for noting knowing how many feet are in a meter. Hasn't someone pulled him aside and told him that audiences expect an anchor to at least fake that they've taken the time to figure out feet to meters? When he was asked about why Jon Stewart mocked him so often, Sanchez replied:

I have taken to heart some of Jon Stewart's criticisms and I asked Jon about that last week. He said, "Rick, I'm a comedian and the only reason I focused on you was because I like you."

Maybe I just never saw it that way. Maybe I was too thin-skinned. I blamed it on Jon's prejudice and that was wrong. But here is my point: Oftentimes the ridiculing was simply baseless. I was ridiculed for not knowing how many inches or feet in ten meters. I didn't think that was fair, because it happened during a breaking news story and frankly I'm not good with the metric system.

Ex-CNN host Rick Sanchez appeared on Friday's Good Morning America to apologize yet again for calling Jon Stewart a bigot and to bemoan the lack of minorities in journalism. Sanchez complained, "If you look at the landscape right now in our media, in primetime, there's not a single Hispanic. There's not a single African-American." [MP3 here.]

First off, although not in primetime, GMA features an African American co-host (Robin Roberts) and an Asian news reader (Juju Chang).

Co-anchor George Stephanopoulos quickly started picking apart Sanchez's arguments. He mentioned 20/20's Elizabeth Vargas. "I'm talking about newscasts," the former CNN anchor spun.

TV Newser reports that fired CNN anchor Rick Sanchez has broken his public silence and offered his apologies for calling Jon Stewart a "bigot."

On October 4th, I had a very good conversation with Jon Stewart, and I had the opportunity to apologize for my inartful comments from last week.  I sincerely extend this apology to anyone else whom I may have offended.

As Jon was kind enough to note in his show Monday night, I am very much opposed to hate and intolerance, in any form, and I have frequently spoken out against prejudice. Despite what my tired and mangled words may have implied, they were never intended to suggest any sort of narrow-mindedness  and should never have been made.

Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute found it strange that the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was so quiet (add to that their Facebook page seems more concerned about "net neutrality" in the last few days): 

On Tuesday, Fox Chicago News anchor Bob Sirott suggested that Rick Sanchez might land at the Fox News Channel. In his "One More Thing" commentary, Sirott pointed out that most people had never heard of Sanchez until CNN fired him last week.  Still, Sanchez could bounce back:

Some believe Rick Sanchez's career is is over, but others think it's just beginning, and now that he's a nationally known hot button subject a network that likes controversial personalities will hire him. Can you say FOX News Channel?

Rick Sanchez, who was fired from his Rick's List program on CNN on Friday, certainly racked up a record of liberal bias, specifically bias against conservatives, during his tenure at the network. Sanchez also revealed a propensity for making on-air gaffes which made him a targets of comedians like Jon Stewart. It was the former anchor's animosity toward Stewart which directly led to his firing.

Here's the "best of Sanchez" list compiled from the Media Research Center's archives, updated from a July 22, 2010 item on NewsBusters:

Targeting Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio

In late 2008, the CNN anchor gained the 3 pm Eastern time slot of CNN's Newsroom, which would evolve into his Rick's List program. He consistently targeted conservative media outlets from that time until his firing.

ED HENRY: "Fox, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio were vying for it- all made strong cases. In the end, Fox [was] unanimously moved up to the front row, but did not get the seat Helen Thomas was in. We voted unanimously to move the Associated Press over to where Helen Thomas was because what a lot of people were missing in this whole fight was that"-
BROOKE BALDWIN: "And it is a fight"-
HENRY: "Yeah"-
BALDWIN: "Which is fascinating, for those of us who don't understand the inner workings of the"-
HENRY: "Sure, and then we can walk through the whole"-
SANCHEZ: "Well, I understand the Associated Press. I even understand Bloomberg, but don't have you to be a news organization to get that seat?"
HENRY: "Oh! Are you saying Fox is not a news organization?"
SANCHEZ: "Yeah. I'm just wondering."
-Exchange with CNN correspondents Ed Henry, a member of the board of the White House Correspondents Association, and Brooke Baldwin, August 2, 2010 [see video above]. Almost a year earlier, Sanchez hinted Fox News wasn't a "real news organization."

TVNewser is reporting that Rick Sanchez has been fired by CNN. The network released a statement earlier this evening: "Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well."

On Thursday evening, the now-former CNN anchor blasted Jon Stewart as a "bigot" on Pete Dominick's radio show and indicated that Jews ran CNN and the media. He also criticized the "top brass" at CNN for supposed prejudice and went into detail about his hatred for Fox News, as NB's Matthew Balan reported earlier on Friday afternoon.

We encourage our readers to leave their comments on this breaking news.

CNN's Rick Sanchez lashed out at multiple groups left and right during an interview on satellite radio with comedian Pete Dominick. During the interview, Sanchez slammed Jon Stewart, who has regularly made fun of the anchor, as a "bigot," and stated that the media is run by Jews. But the anchor also went into detail about his hatred of Fox News and falsely claimed that he doesn't smear people himself.

Mediaite, HotAir.com, and Politico on Friday all highlighted Sanchez's anti-Stewart remarks and his questionable statements about Jews. Dominick, on his own website, gave additional details about how the CNN anchor not only targeted apparent prejudice against him from "top brass" at CNN: "Sanchez's example was an illustration that the problem of racism in the media business goes further than many expect, enveloping 'not just the Right,' but also 'elite, Northeast establishment liberals' that 'deep down, when they look at a guy like me, they see a guy automatically who belongs in the second tier, and not the top tier.'" This isn't a surprising characterization from Sanchez, who sees himself as in the "middle" or "not ideological."

Dominick, who once worked with Stewart on The Daily Show, posted three clips from the interview on his website, and 10 minutes into the second clip, the standup comedian tried to explain his trade to the anchor, that comics don't think about people's feelings when they make fun of them, but only think about being funny. Sanchez didn't buy this, and made a claim about how he operates [audio clip available here]:

CNN's Rick Sanchez positioned himself above the fray between "right wing" Fox News and "liberal" MSNBC on Thursday's Rick's List. Sanchez named Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and their network to his "List U Don't Want 2 Be On," after the Obama administration supposedly exposed his competitor's left wing bias, and claimed that he "wasn't necessarily liked" by the current or previous administrations.

Before putting his colleagues at MSNBC on his "list," the CNN anchor invoked his longtime vendetta against his other competitor and took a swipe at the last vice president: "Much was made of Vice President Cheney's insistence- remember this?- on only watching Fox News in his travels. It's a true story. Whenever he checked into hotels, he would have his staffers tune all of the TVs in the hotel to only Fox News, so he could just hear about his policies, repeated back to him by a right-wing television network."

Sanchez then moved on to his main subject: "Well, today I asked this question: what about MSNBC and their relationship now with this White House? Here's 'The List U Don't Want 2 Be On.'" He continued with the claim that "if you don't think for one minute that MSNBC is to Barack Obama what Fox was to Bush and Cheney, then you obviously haven't heard this comment that I'm about to share with you- this comment from Deputy White House [Press] Secretary Bill Burton."

On Wednesday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez implied that Fox News played some kind of part in James O'Keefe's attempted "punk" of correspondent Abbie Boudreau: "The same right-wing videographer, who entrapped and embarrassed innocent people in the past, tries it again- this time on a CNN correspondent....How could he try something so stupid, and what was Fox News's role?" [audio clip available here]

Sanchez made this parting shot at his longstanding nemesis on the last prime time edition of his show, as the 8 pm time slot on CNN is being taken over on October 4 by a new program featuring former New York governor and "Client Number Nine" Eliot Spitzer and pseudo-conservative Kathleen Parker. The anchor raised his implying question about the apparent "role" of Fox News during the lead-in to his program. Instead of making a direct accusation against Fox News, as he did in the aftermath of the murders of three Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania police officers in April 2009, he replayed an earlier interview with Boudreau from the top of the 4 pm Eastern hour of his program.

Comedian Stephen Colbert on Thursday ridiculed Rick Sanchez, the much-maligned CNN personality that deservedly is the butt of many jokes.

After telling his "Colbert Report" viewers that Jon Stewart's Washington rally next month has been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Colbert informed them that he too has gotten a "major media figure" in his corner.

Upon learning the endorsement is from Sanchez, Colbert said, "Wow. Rick Sanchez. The coveted Sanchez bump. That could get me tens of supporters."

After showing a clip of the CNNer making a fool of himself on the air, Colbert panicked, "Oh, my God. It's like I'm a freshman and I've just been befriended by a loser upper-classman" (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Right Scoop):

On Tuesday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez again bashed Fox News and the conservative media, two of his favorite subjects of ire. Sanchez stated that President Obama was being "dogged" and blamed "conservative talk radio hosts...lambasting this man 24/7.... [and] Fox News, which is essentially the voice of the Republican Party, whose job it is to make this man look bad no matter what he does" [audio clip available here].

The CNN anchor brought on political correspondent Jessica Yellin at the bottom of the 3 pm Eastern hour to discuss the President's town hall meeting on Monday. After playing a clip of Velma Hart, an Obama supporter who bluntly told the chief executive that she was "exhausted of defending" him, Sanchez asked Yellin for her take on whether "others out there are thinking in many of the ways that she [Hart] expressed herself."

Just posted this morning over at MRC.org, our latest edition of Notable Quotables, a bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media. Topics this week include: CBS's Bob Schieffer absurdly suggesting Republicans could face a landslide defeat this year, "very much like 1964," while Katie Couric frets (again) how "moderate Republicans are becoming an endangered species." Also in this issue, NBC's Meredith Vieira declares that the Bush tax cuts "didn't succeed, so what's so good about them," while CBS's Harry Smith lobbies for "a second stimulus" or even "something like a new WPA."

Oh, and Chris Matthews gets another “thrill” from hearing Obama speak — this time, it’s “all over me.” Video of that confession, plus three other clips after the jump.

[Click here to view/download the three-page, fully-formatted, full-color PDF]

Now the quotes from recent weeks, as featured in the September 20 Notable Quotables:

Steve Krakauer at Mediaite reported CNN anchor Rick Sanchez has been on the air promoting his new book (badly titled Conventional Idiocy) – 36 times in the last three weeks. "So how did the book sell? According to numbers Mediaite obtained from Bookscan, Sanchez’ book sold 802 copies in its first week."

As of Saturday, it ranked #5,920 on Amazon and #13,287 on Barnes & Noble. Perhaps Sanchez and his publishers at Penguin didn't realize that the title doesn't sound like a critique of someone else. It sounds like "Come buy 272 pages of idiocy." That might work for a comedian, but not for an anchorman. The shot at left is actually meant as a publicity shot to promote the book, not Sanchez's lack of savvy around electric cords.

The Smoking Gun relayed that photo and their take on Sanchez's titanic ego:

While the mainstream media have been in a frenzy to denounce Christine O'Donnell as a kook for her socially conservative statements on abstinence from the 1990s, the cable news networks had a perfect opportunity this afternoon to let her speak for herself.

Collectively they gave her less than five minutes.

The Republican Delaware Senate nominee gave a speech at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. this afternoon from about 3:25 to 3:45 p.m. EDT. Of the three major cable news networks, Fox News showed none of the speech while MSNBC's Chris Jansing gave viewers just under a minute of O'Donnell audio before interviewing Time magazine's Jay Newton-Small about concerns some GOP operatives have about O'Donnell being a weaker matchup against the Democratic nominee than Rep. Mike Castle (R) would have been.

Only CNN's Rick Sanchez gave O'Donnell a substantial chunk of time: 3 minutes and 33 seconds. When Sanchez cut away from O'Donnell, he noted that she's "getting her first taste of the national spotlight" since clinching the nomination and promised that CNN would "continue to follow as the midterms in November draws near."

CNN's Rick Sanchez thinks that Ronald Reagan wouldn't even be conservative enough for certain members of the Tea Party.

Sanchez discussed Tuesday's Republican Senate Primary in Delaware on his Monday news hour. He criticized the Tea Party's opposition to GOP establishment candidate Congressman Mike Castle as over-the-top, and claimed Castle is "respectable" and "conservative enough" for the region. Castle has a lifetime ACU rating of 52.

Tea Party members in Delaware have largely supported the more conservative Christine O'Donnell. Sanchez believes O'Donnell gives the GOP less of a chance to win in the general election.

"But you know what's interesting about this," Sanchez continued, "I mean if you put this in perspective, Ronald Reagan would be taken out of the mix by some of these more far-Right Tea Party folks. Richard Nixon would never have become the President of the United States."

On Wednesday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried to connect the overwhelming opposition to the planned Ground Zero mosque to a Florida pastor's "Burn a Koran Day" event. Sanchez asked former New York Governor George Pataki, "Do you feel in any way that some of this backlash...led by some fine gentlemen like yourself...has kind of paved the way for that controversy, and if so, do you feel guilty at all?" [audio clip available here]

Sanchez interviewed Pataki during the prime time edition of his program. Just before the bottom of the 8 pm Eastern hour, the anchor raised Pastor Terry Jones's planned inflammatory protest: "Let me ask you one final question, if I possibly can. There's this new hullabaloo going on in Gainesville, Florida, with this pastor who wants to literally burn Korans. And now, we're getting protests in Afghanistan- our generals are saying this guy's going to get our troops killed."

CNN's Rick Sanchez took a very strong position about a White House promise on Monday only to have to backtrack and admit he was wrong 45 minutes later.

During Monday's "Rick's List," Sanchez challenged Republican National Committee communications director Doug Heye about his claim that the Obama administration said the unemployment rate wouldn't exceed eight percent if Congress enacted the President's stimulus bill.

"Doug, who made that promise?" asked a defiant Sanchez. "I never recall hearing the President of the United -- in fact, I recall the very first speech the President of the United States made after being sworn in and the very first thing he said to Americans was, expect unemployment to go into double digits."

The CNN host arrogantly continued, "I don't think you're right. Prove me wrong."

About 45 minutes later, Sanchez marvelously proved himself wrong (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

CNN's Rick Sanchez, who was quick to blame Fox News for the 2009 murders of three police officers in Pennsylvania, treaded much more carefully on Wednesday's Rick's List as he covered the eco-terrorist who brought bombs, guns, and took hostages at Discovery Channel's headquarters. Sanchez stated that Lee may have been "well-meaning," but "most watching this would argue he may have taken [his cause] way too far on this day" [audio clip available here]. Most?

The breaking news about James Lee's standoff at the educational channel's Silver Spring, Maryland office building dominated Sanchez's broadcast. Twenty-five minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour, during an interview of former hostage negotiator Tom Fuentes, the anchor summarized Lee's manifesto: "He apparently wants the Discovery Channel...[to] broadcast certain commitments to save the planet...He's apparently anti-war....He's concerned about global warming, talks about Malthusian sciences, continues to come back to saving the planet." He then asked Fuentes, "So...if you get my drift, Tom, he's very concerned. He's an activist, may be very well-meaning, but he's now put himself in a situation where he, the police officers and his hostages' lives are endangered. What do you do?"

CNN's Rick Sanchez quickly apologized on his Rick's List program on Monday after inadvertently labeling Barack Obama the "cotton-picking president of the United States." Sanchez used the racially-tinged term in response to the President recently addressing the significant percentage of American population who believe he is Muslim or was born outside the U.S. [audio available here]

The anchor raised President Obama's recent comment about his birth certificate with correspondent Jessica Yellin 21 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour. Yellin explained that "this is the first time he's talked about it since the polls showing how many Americans believe him to be Muslim came out" and that "you get the sense that he's been sort of through this. He wants to set the record straight, but he really does seem to accept that he's not going to convince everyone, and he's not going to spend a lot of time and energy on something that's not going to change."

Sanchez replied to Yellin full of frustration: "I'm just sitting here just shaking my head. He is the cotton-picking president of the United States!" He continued with another slighter gaffe: "If the president of the United States doesn't have enough of a bully pulpit to convince people of a lie- that a lie is a lie, I should say, then- you know, where are we? What kind of planet are we living on? What the hell is going on here?"

CNN's Deborah Feyerick joined the media guessing game as to the motivation behind the stabbing of Muslim taxicab driver in New York City, emphasizing the possibility it may have been "connected to this big Ground Zero controversy, where we're hearing so much anti-Muslim sentiment." Feyerick raised this hypothesis during reports on Thursday's Rick's List and The Situation Room.

The correspondent's first report on the attack aired 12 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour of Rick's List. Anchor Rick Sanchez played a clip from victim Ahmed Sharif's press conference on Thursday before introducing Feyerick. She began by stating that when "Michael Enright, the suspect, was arrested, he had numerous journals and notebooks on him, all of them filled with writings, some of it completely illegible. That is now with authorities, all of that being vetted and looked through to see whether, in fact, there was anything indicating that he had undergone some sort of a mental or emotional change."

Feyerick did mention that Enright "ironically...was a volunteer working for a non-profit organization that promotes peace," but didn't mentioned that the organization, Intersections International, actually supports the planned mosque near Ground Zero. She continued with the speculation over the possible motivation of the attack, including the "anti-Muslim" charge:

Glenn Beck on Thursday told his radio audience that CNN's Rick Sanchez is the dumbest man ever on television.

As NewsBusters has been chronicling the bumblings and stumblings of Sanchez for quite some time, we're certainly not going to take the other side of this debate.

Even if we tried, it would be difficult for the conservative talker highlighted many of this genius's missteps that we've also shared with our readers recently (video follows with transcript and clips of related miscues, h/t The Right Scoop):

On Wednesday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez returned to his obsession with Fox News, stating that the network "obviously tends to lean way, way, way to the right." He did acknowledge this his competitors at MSNBC "tends to sway to the left," but went on to extend his "I play it down the middle" label of himself to his entire liberal network: "We happen to be in the middle, and that's the way we do things" [audio available here].

The anchor, who denied that he had any ideological leanings less than a month ago, brought on correspondent Jessica Yellin 17 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour to report on the political donations of News Corporation, which own their competitor, Fox News. Yellin reported that News Corp. "has given a million to the Republican Governors Association." Sanchez replied that "there is nothing wrong with giving money....Time Warner is a big company. I'm sure Time Warner gives money to different organizations, except I have no idea what it is." He then asked, "So, what I want from you is, the $1 million figure, all those zeroes...is it different? Is it substantially different?"

CNN's Jessica Yellin, a one-time "prominent feminist activist," helped forward the talking points of the pro-abortion lobby by devoting part of a segment on Tuesday's Rick's List to EMILY List's new anti-Sarah Palin ad. Yellin aired their left-wing accusations against the Republican and her endorsed candidates without providing the other side and/or fact-checking them [audio clips available here].

Anchor Rick Sanchez introduced the issue by bringing up the Republican's recent "mamma grizzly" ad: "It seemed like a very effective ad that Sarah Palin had put out. I mean, professionally speaking, it was very clean, very well put together- the whole 'grizzly mom' ad that everyone was talking about- and, apparently, there's some blowback on this now. What is that?"

Discussing Harry Reid's racially-charged comment about Hispanic Republicans, Rick Sanchez miraculously managed to turn the embattled senator's gaffe into an example of his opponent Sharron Angle's incompetence. On the prime time "Rick's List" yesterday, the CNN host actually gave serious consideration to the Nevada Democrat's claim while exploring the extent to which the Angle campaign is "blacking out" Hispanic media outlets.

"Also, do you think a Hispanic-American can be a Republican?" teased Sanchez. "Harry Reid doesn't think so. And I'm going to tell you what Hispanic groups are saying about his opponent as well."

Instead of interviewing a Hispanic Republican who is offended by Reid's insensitive remarks, Sanchez brought on Miguel Barrientos, a liberal talk show host, to "drill down" on why Angle is allegedly ignoring Hispanic journalists.

"These charges against Angle, are they real?" asked a bewildered Sanchez. "Is she really blocking out the Latin media? Or is this just a case of opportunism by her opponent, Harry Reid?"

CNN's Rick Sanchez bizarrely wondered on Tuesday's Rick List whether investigating the funding behind the planned mosque near Ground Zero would lead to investigations into Catholic and/or Mormon funding: "If you start going into who is giving money...you've got to go to Rome and start asking where the money is going into Rome....and you have to go the Mormons and ask...what are they doing with their money? [audio clips available here]

Sanchez posed that vaguely morally relativistic question as he interviewed former New York Governor George Pataki during the prime-time edition of his program 14 minutes into the 8 pm Eastern hour. Before bringing on his guest, the CNN anchor inquired whether the opponents of the proposed Islamic center/mosque had become extreme: "Are those against this Islamic center/mosque in New York City going too far these days? I want to you decide as you look at this new ad that's going to be running on city buses in New York. On one side, as you look at this, you will see that there's a picture of a mosque- on the other side, a shot of a plane that's slamming into the Twin Towers, and it poses this question: why there? The ad is being sponsored by a group that's called The American Freedom Defense Initiative."

After noting former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and current mayor Michael Bloomberg's support for the mosque, Sanchez introduced Pataki and first asked him, "Why are they [Koch and Bloomberg] wrong and why are you right?" After the Republican explained his opposition, the anchor gave his first hint to his later Catholic/Mormon question: "Once you start telling someone you can't worship here because it affects the sensibilities or sensitivities of someone else, you're starting to go down a slippery slope, and then a lot of people would ask- well, which religion is next? Who else are we going to not let worship where they want, how they want?"