Clearly he should have kept his mouth shut, but I can understand what he was trying to say, which was that 'ni---r' is a term to describe a subset of people who are scumbags, and shouldn't be intended as an insult to all blacks (even though many people would say that it is). I get his point, but what I find silly is that as soon as the PC crowd hears the "N-word" come out of someone's mouth, they ignore whatever context it was used in and rush to string up the offender.
I just think it should take a little more than an un-PC comment to trash someone's career, even if he was an idiot for saying it and should have known better.