One happy Imus fan

Don Imus returned to the air with apologetic remarks, then added, "Other than that, not much has changed. Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, Hillary Clinton is still Satan, I'm back on the radio and the coffee’s still good at B. J.’s house.”

OK, I added that last part, but it’s true!

Like the night my “Friends” exited the apartment door or finally tossing my favorite old houseshoes, the absence of Imus and his crew in the morning was unsettling.

I had grown accustomed to the craggy-faced curmudgeon and stepped right back into the comfortable morning routine.

I once heard David Letterman say he liked “Beavis and Butthead” because “they’re consistent.” And both Imus and his fans know that is crucial to the new show’s success.

The I-man promised the show his fans came to love “is not going to change,” a remark which drew loud applause from yesterday’s live audience.

RFD-TV, which will simulcast Imus’ WABC-AM show, says 30 million viewers will tune in. The channel hopes to add “20 million urban viewers.”

RFD, for you city slickers, stands for the postal designation, “rural free delivery.”

A friend who gets the channel via satellite told me the program is being bleeped. Well, they ain’t gonna add urban viewers that way.

I buzzed the blogosphere to get reaction to the broadcast, and that hasn’t changed, either – you love Imus or you hate him.

I ran across a blog by a Jewish woman who was complaining about “that bastard Imus” and his new black female sidekick, Karith Foster, a Texas gal educated at Missouri’s exclusive Stephens College and Oxford University in England.

The Jewish woman was raising hell because Foster had joked on her Web site, “I'm really a Jewish girl from Long Island trapped in this body, which technically makes me a JAAP - Jewish African-American Princess."

Sometimes you’re just damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And sometimes, you just want to scream, “SHUT UP!”

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Read the Associate Press coverage of the first show: LINK

Listen to Imus “streaming live” at WABC-AM, 6 to 9 ET weekday mornings. Go HERE and click on "Listen Live."

TODAY'S QUOTE: In discussing the issue of illegal immigration with Imus, GOP hopeful Mike Huckabee said, "We should get down on our knees every night and thank God we live in a country people are trying to break into and not trying to break out of."