Seems like one of these cases where the reaction is scarier than the actual comment itself.

I'm with you here. Why is that news??

Bliss is right.

"Dismissed for lack of evidence" is not quite the same as "proven innocent" but I get the point about the media circus and there I agree with you.

Raising my glass! It's not censorship, it's a backlash from people who don't want to hear that level of trash and don't want to support it with their advertising dollars.

While I can see a place for one or two of the guys that can and will say anything, this is getting out of hand. It's just nasty now.

Totally. Although I've already stated my piece on the ethically bankrupt tactics of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, I think the end result of Imus getting canned is not in opposition to our (or his) first amendment rights.

Nowhere in the first amendment does it say we are guaranteed a forum to air our thoughts. Imus' forum is only temporarily over until satellite radio contacts him, which you bet your sweet arse they are doing after all this free publicity. Suddenly, Al and Jesse made him relevant again, which only goes to line their own pockets and work against what they supposedly stand for, i.e. making the idiot Imus bigger than he's been in decades.

The CBS execs are being completely disingenuous when they say this had to do with the SPEECH and not with the DOLLARS. If the advertising reaction had been "look, free publicity!" then CBS would never have pulled anything. MORE people watched Rosie after that silly "Ching chong" debacle that she talked about, and you didn't see her even suspended from the show. She apologized, end of story.

So yeah, if the free market dictates what we see, well, I've accepted that as a member of the society we live in. But don't tell me it's not because of the money.

In his press conference announcing the dismissal of the charges the state AG explicity used the word innocent, which is not a word easily used by prosecutors.