Re: Did Imus provide....
I watched Imus all the time on MSNBC.
I even saw the original remark about the Rutgers team live. I am one who generally has controversial remarks simply go by relatively unnoticed, and even I was outraged by his specific comments.
That said, he did a ton of good things. He applied pressure and got the death benefits for soldiers increased from $6,000 to more than a quarter million.
He raised a ton of money for the "fallen heros fund" to build a rehab center in Texas
He provided a forum for the recent Walter Reed and the VA scandal to get attention, and pressure to have officials accountable.
etc...
And he provided a forum for politicians, columnists, and all sorts of others from varied areas of the political spectrum a place to discuss at length their individual positions.
And he provided a place for authors to promote their books, and I have bought a lot of good books that I probably never would have heard about...
That said, he went over the line frequently in his attempts at humor, and were often lame, and he would tend to the sophomoric gutter humor would often be painful to watch.
All in all, I'm very sorry he's gone, and to the extent that it empowers the Al Sharpton's and Jesse Jackson's of the world to be moral arbiters for broacasters, I'm doubly sorry about that.
