In the wake of Helen Thomas's retirement from Hearst and her departure from the White House Press Room, there's been some attempt to plumb the background of Rabbi David Nesenoff, who shot the infamous interview with Thomas for his videoblog, RabbiLive. What have they found? If I'm being honest, nothing much! Basically what's been unearthed is that Nesenoff is not cut out for sketch comedy.
Mediaite's Colby Hall thinks this is really important, so here you go:
Welcome to the second chapter of the story of Rabbi David Nesenoff. America first got to know this man as the guy who recorded Helen Thomas on his flip-cam saying what many believed to be offensive comments regarding Jews. But just just as a pendulum swings both ways, the nature of viral video swings back to reveal Mr. Nesenoff in what many will surely see as an offensive and stereotypical portrayal of Mexican-Americans in a hackneyed weatherman shtick.
Yeah, well, it's not going to be remembered as a particularly important or interesting chapter in this story. At issue is another YouTube video -- which you can see below -- that was posted by RaceWire. I'm not sure why Hall believes this clip to be a "viral" video (seeing as how it lacks the key ingredient of virality) or why he thinks it's an equal swing of a "pendulum." For their part, Racewire seems to understand that it's not exactly in possession of a smoking gun:
Anyway, here's a video from February of this year in which Rabbi Nesenoff dons a terrible Mexican impression and makes a lot of jokes about being detained by ICE. You've got a stronger stomach than me if you can make it past the one about being a dishwasher. What is it with these gotcha-guys and wigs?
If I had to offer an opinion of the content of the video, I'd say that Nesenoff isn't exactly poised for a future at the Upright Citizens Brigade and that the biggest flaw with his imitation of a Mexican priest is that his diction is awful to the point of utter incomprehensibility.
Obviously, if you showed me this a month ago and told me he'd be the guy who'd end Helen Thomas's career, I'd have thought you were crazy. And then, I'd have been wrong! It's not nothing, but that's pretty much the entirety of the valuable context this clip provides.
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The man who brought down Helen Thomas [Dave Weigel]
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