I'm not defending him. When someone makes a transgression, especially such a blatant one, I always try to reason why would the person do that in the first place. If someone kills another person, it's very likely that they didn't do it just for fun.

So if an action is so egregious, why risk your career over it? I figure it's because he didn't equate MILF with crossing any line. Otherwise, why would he bother to regroup and try again after getting rejected? I cannot fathom why someone would act in such a way that they'd get fired if they knew beforehand that they were in the wrong . Which, as you said, is the issue: he (not me) didn't think that there was anything wrong with what he said.

And for the umpteenth time, his words and actions were NOT acceptable. I just want to reason through something that seems so obviously wrong to me.