Borat is an entirely different situation than Imus. But let me give a critique of him and his "art" that has nothing to do with Imus--Imus is not parodist.

To me there has always been a similarity between Andy Kaufman and Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Ali G.). The difference between them is that Andy K. (who I adored) is that Andy K. would never step out of character as Cohen does (to give interviews). His (AK) put-ons were just that with no break to say---hey, I'm just kidding.   You had to figure it out for yourself.   From his craziness with wrestlers (that actually devolved into damage to himself) to "shtick" about being a no talent and then morphing into Elvis.

An intersting aside about him is that, while he was brilliant in Taxi he did it only for the money---as he said---hated the job. Never rehearsed and did most of his material on the fly. This got him no love from Jud Hirsch. The others seemed to have liked him.

Read his bio written by Bob Zmuda---Andy's sometime replacement as his alter ego--Tony Clifton---among other things.   

You will find out some pretty interesting things---including Michael Richards short fuse is not a new thing, his creation of characters that he had people believing were real.   Which brings us back to the begining re: Cohen and Kaufman. He never stepped out of character--he could talk to the press but not about his characters--they spoke as themselves at all times. You had to believe for a time there was a Tony Clifton (he coulda been a star but Im big in the tricounty area).

Bill Hahn