Just eight months after he was spectacularly fired from both CBS Radio and MSNBC for making racially and sexually disparaging remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team, radio railer Don Imus was back on the airwaves Monday, assuring listeners and advertisers he was a changed man.

But not that changed.

"Dick Cheney is still a war criminal," the 67-year-old said on his first broadcast for WABC-AM. "Hillary Clinton is still Satan. And I'm going on the radio."

Still, while his rhetoric remains much the same as it did pre-implosion, Imus, with a revamped lineup of sidekicks that includes the notable addition of black comedians Karith Foster and Tony Powell, said he would bolster his usual talking points with "an ongoing discussion about race relations in this country."

"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," he said. "And no one else will say anything else on my program that will make anyone think that I didn't deserve a second chance."

The inaugural broadcast was held at Manhattan's Town Hall, where a group of assembled fans congregated, to the tune of $100 tickets, to witness his comeback broadcast. Proceeds from the sales benefited his pet charity, the Imus Ranch, which enables children suffering from cancer to experience cowboy life at a working cattle ranch in New Mexico.

Several familiar faces joined Imus for the show, including Bernard McGuirk, Imus' longtime producer and the man whose original reference to the Rutgers team as "some hardcore hos" on Apr. 4 incited Imus' reference to the team as "nappy-headed hos." Just over a week later, on Apr. 12, Imus & Co. were fired from the gig.

In addition to Imus' brigade of regulars, big-name guests had no problems appearing on the broadcast.

Sen. John McCain phoned into the program for an in-depth interview, ending the conversation with a hearty, "Welcome back, old friend," directed at Imus. Democratic Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd also appeared on the program, as did historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and politico heavyweights James Carville and Mary Matalin.

After his opening remarks, Imus said fans shouldn't expect him to embark on the mea culpa circuit, and that he had learned his lesson all on his own.

"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," he said of his self-described "life-changing experience."

Still, Imus did make time for one interviewer, granted his first interview since uttering the remarks to Barbara Walters for her 10 Most Fascinating People of 2007 special.

"I think that what happened is probably what should have happened," he said, per a transcript from ABC, which will air the Walters special on Thursday.

Imus also said that while he felt the massive media coverage of the incident exacerbated the hurt feelings of the basketball team, he did not blame the media for latching on to the story, or claim that he was a victim, despite others' seemingly prodding him to do so.

"This had so much impact on them, because it was made such a huge deal. I had people say to me, 'Well, if the news media hadn't have blown it up, if Rev. Al [Sharpton] hadn't have done that...' and I said, 'Nonsense.'

"The point was, it got to the point where they were, in fact, distraught about it," he told Walters. "I just kept thinking over and over again, 'Thank god that I'm here because I want to be here. I'm not here just trying to save my bigtime job.' "

Imus also denied that the new, equal-opportunity additions to his radio-show cast were the result of any lingering guilt over the incident.

"I thought it was an opportunity to diversify the cast," he said. "Anybody who is on our program is there because they are funny or smart. I suddenly find myself in this unique position to present a better program.

"People don't want to have this conversation about race relations, so, out of this idiotic thing that I said, a lot of good can come, because I'll have a huge audience and an enormously influential audience."

In addition to its WABC-AM slot, Imus' morning show will air on four other Citadel Broadcasting-owned stations as well as 17 other stations around the country. The show will also be simulcast on Rural Media Group's 24-hour cable channel RFD-TV, which reaches nearly 30 million homes nationwide.