Jon Stewart hasn't got Rick Sanchez's Rick's List to poke fun at anymore, but the Daily Show host showed some old clips while bidding the CNN anchor an almost-fond farewell. The host compared Sanchez—fired for calling Stewart a bigot and suggesting Jews control the media—to The Office's attention-seeking Michael Scott. "We weren't making fun of Rick Sanchez because of a slight to ethnicity," Stewart said. "We see him as a complex television character who is flawed but fascinating to watch every week."
As for his comments, "I'm not even sure Sanchez believes what he's saying," Stewart said, playing a couple of clips in which Sanchez denounced bigotry, including one in which he slammed a white supremacist running for office for refusing to talk to the "Jew media." Sanchez should "consider himself un-busted," Stewart said. Meanwhile, Sanchez's wife claimed on her Facebook page that Sanchez called Stewart to apologize and they had "a good talk," during which Stewart called Sanchez "thin-skinned," Gawker reports. She also noted that her hubby "deeply apologizes to anyone who was offended by his unintended comments."
(More Rick Sanchez stories.)