In a surprising turn of events, Rick Sanchez -- who was fired by CNN in October for calling Jon Stewart "a bigot" -- is now taking the initiative to publicly state the opposite.
"Jon’s not a racist or a bigot—not even close," Sanchez wrote on his blog Wednesday, in response to accusations by Fox News' Bernie Goldberg that Stewart's impressions of Herman Cain were racially insensitive and "would never [have been] tolerated if a conservative had done it.”
Sanchez claims that Stewart isn't a hateful person "hiding under the cover of comedy." He continued:
Jon's goal every night is to inform and illuminate, and to be funny while doing so. Whatever Jon's political leanings, he is an equal-opportunity comedian and satirist. Whether you're black, brown, green or purple, whether you're Hispanic, White, African-American, Arab or Chinese, whether you're liberal, conservative, libertarian or just plain apolitical, Jon just goes where the funny is (and sometimes it's the jugular). Nobody gets a pass. And that's exactly the way it should be.
Sanchez would know; he was frequently the subject of Stewart's jokes prior to being fired. And while he initially thought he was a target due to his ethnicity, he now admits that he was just being "thin-skinned."
"I was wrong," he said.