Jack Cafferty
Jack Cafferty (born
1944/
1945) is a
CNN commentator and a host of the weekend financial show
In The Money. In the summer of 2005, Cafferty joined
The Situation Room, CNN's new weekday afternoon newscast. Cafferty formerly co-anchored CNN's weekday morning broadcast,
American Morning.
Before CNN, Cafferty worked for several
New York television stations. He was one of
Sue Simmons' co-anchors on
WNBC's Live at Five and anchored
WPIX's News at Ten with
Kaity Tong.
From 1989-1992, Cafferty anchored Newsline New York, a nightly news and interview format program on WNYW-TV, as well as co-anchoring the evening broadcast for Fox 5 News at 7.
In the 1970s, he was anchor of the local television news in
Des Moines, Iowa at the local NBC affiliate,
WHO channel 13, and hosted a popular segment "Cafferty Is" whereby he would perform various tasks and occupations.
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Jack Cafferty while working for WNBC in the 1980s |
Cafferty's comments on
Arabs and
Muslims have become a main focus of criticism. On
September 23 2004, while discussing
terrorist demands to release two female scientists from
Iraqi prison, Cafferty emphatically stated "Given the way these mutants treat women in their societies, the women are probably better off in U.S. custody." He later added, "They treat women like furniture in those countries. If I was a woman, I think I'd rather be in an American jail cell than I would be living with one of those-whatever they are over there." [
1]
On
November 17 2004, Cafferty made the following comment while discussing video footage of a
United States Marine shooting an apparently un-armed and wounded Iraqi insurgent: "The Arab world is where innocent people are kidnapped, blindfolded, tied up, tortured and beheaded, and then videotape of all of this is released to the world as though they're somehow proud of their barbarism. Somehow, I wouldn't be too concerned about the sensitivity of the Arab world. They don't seem to have very much." He added: "It's going to come down to them or us." [
2]
In 2005, Cafferty began to critize the right-wing of American politics, which previously he had supported.
On
January 19 2006, Cafferty implied that the Bush Administration was behind the release of a new tape from Osama bin Ladin: "The last time we got a tape from Osama bin Laden was right before the 2004 presidential election. Now here we are four days away from hearings starting in Washington into the wire tapping of America's telephones without bothering to get a court order or a warrant, and up pops another tape from Osama bin Laden. Coincidence? Who knows?" [
3] [
4]
On
May 11,
2006, Cafferty said, in response to a news story about the
NSA analyzing Americans' phone records, "We better all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because he might be all that is standing between us and a full-blown dictatorship in this country." [
5]
On
May 18,
2006, Cafferty charged US Republican Congressional leaders with pandering to social conservatives with a backroom approval of a proposed consitutional ammendment to ban gay marriage. "This is all being done by the republican majority in an effort to appeal to Right-wing nuts in the Republican Party ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections. Ignore all of the pressing issues facing the country, and instead go grovel at the feet of the lunatic fringe." [
6]
On
June 22,
2006, Cafferty said, "Remember "
No Child Left Behind"? Well, according to a new study, we're leaving behind 7,000 children every school day in this country." He ended by saying, "We ought to be ashamed of ourselves." [
7]
Cafferty pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, assault and harassment after striking a cyclist on
May 14,
2003. Cafferty was sentenced to a $250 fine and 70 hours of community service. [
8]
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Biography of Cafferty at
CNN *
In the Money at CNN
