It's always fascinating to watch a media person douse themselves in gasoline and then drop a match.

       In the case of Rick Sanchez, formerly of CNN, it's amazing to me that it he had such a big window of opportunity with which to do it.

       I, for one, never watched much of his regular weekday afternoon show because I found his artificial intensity tiresome and his reliance on social networks to generate dialog with the folks at home contrived--how do the thoughts of some anonomous putz onTwitter figure into coverage of the day's events?    I avoided Sanchez and his network religiously until given no other choice one wintry afternoon when a gi-normous earthquake rattled Chile.    It devastated the nation, knocked the earth off it's axis and actually shortened the day by a few milli-seconds.    And, scientists warned of a tsunami that threatened Hawaii.

       It's not every day that one of our 50 states faces a potential encounter with watery mayhem, and I spun through the cable news networks to find out more.     CNN was on the story, and Sanchez was in the anchor chair.    I watched anyway.   Sanchez lived down to expectations.

      I'm not Carmen San Diego but those are the Galapagos Islands.    Rick was only off by three or four thousand miles and one hemisphere.

      Hey, I've had my share on on-air gaffes, too, and I'll make more--anyone who works in front of a live mike and camera is bound to.     But what followed was Sanchez being Sanchez, and it was almost unwatchable except for the fact that it was so deliciously bad I couldn't change the channel.

         Math in the head is never a good thing to do on the air.  

         It got worse.

        Told you.    Do yourself a favor and watch the whole clip to witness the Full Sanchez.

        I couldn't watch anymore--not because I was so repulsed by Sanchez but rather because I had to to out that night.    I was relieved to learn later that eveing that Hawaii hadn't been obliterated and amazed the following Monday that Sanchez still had a job.

        I'm sure Sanchez had fans.   Networks are ratings-driven operations and you don't survive without numbers.   Sanchez had hundreds of thousands following him on Twitter.    I guess his bosses could overlook his brash ineptitude so long as they could sell commercials during his show.

        They couldn't ignore what Sanchez told a Sirius satellite interviewer last week, though.   Sanchez is now gone.    The question now is for how long?    Folks have short memories--CNN gave Elliot Spitzer a weekly show--but what Sanchez said could amount to a career death sentence.   Comments like that tend to stick to someone.  

        Bigger minds than mine have other views on the Sanchez phenomenon and flame-out.   For me, I like my soup hot, my beer cold and my CNN without histrionics.    The Sanchez circus may find a new place to set up it's tents--the Web welcomes all, regardless of color, creed or lack of coherency.   If he does indeed land there, you'll understand if I don't have the site bookmarked.