Irony, Thy Name Is Dog The Bounty Hunter

Sometimes, you can't help but laugh at the stupidity of people.

Of course, there's nothing funny about racism, but the way that Dog The Bounty Hunter has torpedoed his career certainly ranks among the bizarre.

For those not in the loop, Dog was upset about his son dating a black woman. One of the things that upset him was that he apparently is pretty liberal about using the n-word around his house, and the girlfriend might cramp his style. A tape of him yelling at his son during a phone call made it to the National Enquirer, in which he uses the word several times talking about his fear of being caught using the word and having it hurt his career.

That's kind of the definition of irony, because that's exactly what happened, and the girlfriend wasn't even directly involved. Dog is claiming his words were taken out of context, although I cannot for the life of me fathom what possible context he could have been using them in.

Now Dog's highly-rated reality show for A&E has been yanked by the network, and his career as a TV personality at least is in limbo even while he has spent the past few days backtracking and telling the world how much he loves black people.

Um, yeah.

Dog obviously missed last week's brilliant installment of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," in which Larry David DOES use the epithet in a way that was completely out of context and suffers the consequences.

The timing is pretty bad for both Dog and A&E in another way. With the Hollywood writers probably striking as early as Monday, reality TV is going to become a hot commodity, especially a popular, established show like Dog's. Now both the star and the network may lose millions.

I'm not too broken up about this; karma-wise, bigots get what they deserve and A&E ceased being a quality network years ago.

But it's just shocking to me how stupid people can be, especially mere months after the Michael Richards and Don Imus incidents.

AROUND THE DIAL: Perhaps the writers need to strike. It's been announced that Justin Bruening of "All My Children" will take over the David Hasselhoff role in the "Knight Rider" TV movie remake that has been planned. Is this all we have to look forward to? I have no problems with remakes - look at "Battlestar Galactica" - but "Knight Rider?" ...

Speaking of Imus, and perhaps giving Dog The Bounty Hunter a glimmer of hope, the former shock jock returns to the air Dec. 3 for New York-based radio station WABC-AM. I've never been an Imus fan, but I think his remarks were more stupid than bigoted in their use and he's apologized enough where I believe it's time for everyone to move on. Hopefully, he and others have learned their lesson.

WEEKEND'S BEST BETS: Coach Taylor is back in Dillon, so hopefully all will be right in the world for "Friday Night Lights." (NBC, 9 p.m.) Of course, if all was right in the world, this show would get better ratings. It's followed by a new "Las Vegas."

ABC has managed to put together a nice little working formula for itself with "Men In Trees" (ABC, 8 p.m.) and "Women's Murder Club" (ABC, 9 p.m.), while the same could be said for CBS with its lineup of "Ghost Whisperer," "Moonlight" and "Numb3rs."

Finally, the real Super Bowl will take place Sunday as the NFL's two best teams, New England and Indianapolis, square off a 4 p.m. on CBS.