Wait, did we say 'unstoppably racist dimwit'? We meant 'rapier-like skewerer of societal prejudices'. You see, Don Imus is in trouble again, this time for apparently alluding to the fact that an American footballer committed lots of crimes because he's black. But Don Imus says that's not the case.

Don Imus has come forward to point out that actually he was making a sarcastic point about how suspicious policemen are of black people. He was on their side all along! So which is it – is Don Imus a racist or a sarcastic campaigner for social justice? It's too hard to decide – can't we go with 'tedious Worzel-faced old gasbag' and be done with it?

They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit – to which we say, no it isn't. It's the highest form of wit. And nice haircut, too, granddad. But if there's anyone who can do sarcasm so perfectly it's like watching a Russian ballet master in full flight, it's Don Imus.

When it comes to sarcasm, Don Imus has got all the poise and style and flair of a Renaissance painter, of Sir Thomas Beecham midway through Berlioz's Carnaval Romain Overture, of Jesus Christ himself riding around on his special Palm Sunday donkey. Take this example of textbook sarcasm, as provided by Don Imus earlier this week when discussing an athlete who wants to drop his nickname because it reminds people that he's been arrested a lot:

"What color is he?" [Co-host] Wolf said "African-American," and Imus responded, "There you go. Now we know."

Oh that's perfect, that's so sarcastic. That's… actually, wait a minute, isn't that a bit racist? You wouldn't be the only one to think so – Don Imus has already attracted a giant shitstorm about his comments. But the problem isn't that Don Imus couldn't stop being racist if you put his willy in a mousetrap, it's that every single person who heard Don Imus is an idiot who doesn't even understand when someone's being sarcastic.

You see, Don Imus has already lost a job once because he was foolishly racist about black athletes, and he's buggered if he's going to let that happen to him again. That's why, this time, Don Imus isn't going down without a fight. Newsday reports:

During yesterday's show, Imus said the point he wanted to make was that Jones was effectively being harassed by the police, saying, "What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason. I mean, there's no reason to arrest this kid six times. Maybe he did something once, but everyone does something once."

Thank heavens that Don Imus has been so quick to point out something that was obviously completely true all along – it seems to have got him off the hook with his bosses at the radio station, too. Case closed.

It's just a shame that this whole sarcasm excuse explanation hadn't been thought up earlier. Just think of all the fuss that would have been avoided if Mel Gibson would have come forward right after that whole Jew-slagging arrest thing and just admitted to the world that he was really making an important pro-Israel statement via sarcasm and extensive use of the phrase 'Sugartits' all along. We don't know about you, but we'd have swum to Malibu just to hug his big adorable face.

Anyway, we're thrilled that Don Imus has decided to fight back against these new claims of racism. He really is very good at his job and a perfect model to all of God's children.

It wasn't so long ago that Don Imus was hauled from his long-running radio show in shame because he decided to tell his entire audience that a particular black female basketball team were a bunch of 'nappy-headed hos'. Although it cost him his job, this incident enlightened Don Imus to the plight of people of colour, and he vowed never to be racist again.

Unless you define 'racist' as 'appearing to imply that black people are inherently criminal', that is, in which case Don Imus might have just dropped himself in the crapper again. Will Don Imus lose yet another radio show? It doesn't matter, because so long as birds are still eating seeds from farmers' fields, Don Imus will never be fully unemployed.

If we could give celebrities one piece of advice, it'd be to think carefully before opening their mouths. Actually, thinking about it the one piece of advice we'd give Shane Ritchie is 'go and work in a shop or something', but for everyone else the thinking carefully thing holds up.

All too often celebrity careers are undone by a thoughtlessly insensitive slip of the tongue – Dog The Bounty Hunter was undone by racism, Isaiah Washington was undone by homophobia and Jerry Lewis was undone by something about illiterate faggots. But Don Imus is the daddy of being uncomfortably outspoken in public.

After the big 'nappy-headed ho' outcry got him turfed out into the radio wilderness, leaving him with nothing to do but shop for outlandishly-sized cowboy hats on eBay and claw at the barnacles that have been embedded in his face for upwards of 12 decades, Don Imus had to really search his soul. It didn't take particularly long – we hear it's not that big – but when Imus was offered a new job, he was quick to publicly explain his regret over the incident.

And Don Imus was never racist again. The end.

Unless Don Imus was being racist on his radio show yesterday, which he may well could have been. Yesterday morning Don Imus and his sportscaster Warner Wolf were discussing black American football player Adam Jones, a man who doesn't want to be known by his 'Pacman' nickname any more because it reminds people that he's been arrested a number of times in the past. And that's when things got messy.

As the New York Times reports:

Mr. Imus asked, “What color is he?” “He’s African-American,” Mr. Wolf responded. “Well, there you go,” Mr. Imus said. “Now we know.”

Interesting that Warner Wolf answered Imus' question by saying "He's African-American" rather than going with the more logical answer of screaming "Lalalalalala" into the microphone, launching himself across the desk and clamping Don Imus' mouth shut with packing tape before anything too racially-questionable squeaked out of it.

Anyway, Don Imus has tasted the sour side of people hating you because you seem a bit racist, so this time he isn't going down without a fight. in an email to the New York Times, Imus wrote:

“I meant he was being picked on because he’s black.” He added that the veteran black comedian and activist Dick Gregory would be a guest on his show on Tuesday, to discuss the death of George Carlin. “We’ll see what he thinks,” Mr. Imus wrote. “I mean … come on!”

Perhaps his frank, head-on confrontation of the incident will mean Don Imus will be allowed to keep his radio show – that remains to be seen – but it probably spells curtains for his forthcoming TV clips show Black People Do The Funniest Things (Because They're Genetically Inferior To Me, Don Imus).

Back in the springtime, Don Imus briefly became the new Mel Gibson when he attracted a racial firestorm by claiming that a female basketball team all looked a bit like Pampers-loving pieces of horticultural equipment or something, and he was promptly sacked from his radio show as a result. But now Don Imus is back, and presented his first show on WABC-AM just hours ago. And to show how much he's progressed, Don Imus unveiled a brand-new non-racist team including two black comedians. True, they spent the entirety of Don Imus' show locked in a cage wearing loincloths, eating watermelons and singing My Mammy, but a start's a start.

Don Imus is basically the Montel Williams of spring 07, only instead of threatening to blow up teenage girls, Imus referred to an all-black female basketball team as a bunch of "nappy-headed hos." In a world still reeling from Mel Gibson's anti-Jew "sugartits" rant and Michael Richards' less inventive racism, that vaguely obscure insult was a step too far and Don Imus was speedily fired from his CBS radio show.

Not that Don Imus has been completely inactive since then, though – he's used his self-enforced unemployment to blowtorch the limpets off his face, sue CBS for firing him on the grounds that he was only employed by the broadcaster to spout off a relentless torrent of racist woman-hating nonsense in the first place, and plot his comeback like some sort of Machiavellian scarecrow with an especially large amount of time on its hands.

And now it's paid off. As reported back last month, Don Imus has got himself a new radio show on WABC-AM, and it started just a few hours ago. Recorded live at Manhattan City Hall – and featuring the shitstorm-quashing stylings of black comedians Karith Foster and Tony Powell – Don Imus seemed to spend most of the show pleading with the audience to forgive him for being such a foolish old racist. Seattle PI quotes:

"I didn't see any point in going on some sort of Larry King tour to offer a bunch of lame excuses for making an essentially reprehensible remark about innocent people who did not deserve to be made fun of … I will never say anything in my lifetime that will make any of these young women at Rutgers regret or feel foolish that they accepted my apology and forgave me. And no one else will say anything else on my program that will make anyone think that I didn't deserve a second chance… Other than that, not much has changed. Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, Hillary Clinton is still Satan and I'm back on the radio."

These next few days will be among the toughest that Don Imus has ever faced, at least professionally – personally he still has to top that time a dog mistook his sleeping face for an old shoe and started gnawing at it – as he will discover whether his audience of angry rednecks will forgive him for saying something the bulk of them probably agreed with in the first place, and whether he can maintain his shock-jock reputation without resorting to racism again.

That second one will be a piece of cake, though – we read in Don Imus' notebook that he's going to steer clear of trouble from now on by just making a lot of jokes about Jordan's disabled son.

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Don Imus Back On The Air – Seattle PI