Joel Stein offers an amusing hook to his LA Times column today:

Eventually, I'm going to write something horribly offensive. And when I do, it might be several tense hours before I can get Jesse Jackson on the phone in order to apologize to him. So I figured I'd call him now and pre-apologize.

After a back and forth with Reverend Jackson on the phone, Stein concludes, "I am the first person in history to have an apology turned down by Jesse Jackson." Read the whole thing.