Anyone who knows Bruce, 36, should have expected that she would either become a rip-roaring success or else be skinned alive in the ultra-conservative milieu of KFI. What else could one expect from a lesbian feminist forced to share the same water cooler with on-air homophobes and misogynists? That she would allow herself to be kicked around was never in the cards. Not Bruce, who, after embarking on a radio career, had been forced out of her NOW post as the price for speaking her mind. And those were her friends.

This is a woman for whom counter-protesting against anti-abortion groups early in the decade wasn't enough. Instead, she infiltrated them and gathered intelligence so that pro-choice troops could throw protective human barricades around clinics before the other side arrived. She once began an appearance on ABC's Nightline with a four-minute harangue against domestic violence that anchor Ted Koppel couldn't for the life of him turn off. Another time, she managed to skirt security inside the state Capitol and, before a phalanx of TV cameras, dress down Gov. Pete Wilson for not trying to block the parole of a 12-time sex offender. At the O.J. Simpson trial, the relentless Bruce burrowed into Judge Lance Ito's chambers, not once, but twice, complaining of the way he treated prosecutor Marcia Clark. After Simpson's acquittal, she turned self-styled vigilante, introducing "O.J. spottings" on her radio show and leading angry feminist bands to heckle him away from restaurants and golf courses.

Although her politics may have seemed suspect for right-wing radio, management at KFI -- the undisputed raw meat leader of the genre in Los Angeles -- knew a pearl when they saw one. Besides, Bruce wasn't easy to categorize. A lesbian, feminist, abortion-rights crusader, yes. But the slender, five-foot-six-inch Bruce, with her flashing auburn eyes and straight brown shoulder-length hair, was also a labor union-bashing gun owner. (Although, contrary to rumor, she insists she's never belonged to the National Rifle Assn.) She was quick to defend cops whenever the subject turned to police brutality and had a way of even seeming sympathetic to militia types while not extolling their cause. And better still, she would turn Clinton hater, becoming sufficiently incensed by the Monica Lewinsky revelations to change her voter registration from Democrat to Libertarian.

The bottom line was that she took to radio like a duck to water. Insiders credit the station's program director, David G. Hall, who took Bruce under his wing, with teaching her how to use the microphone. Observing early on that she sounded too tentative, he had her do her program standing -- even pacing back and forth -- to pump more vitality into her delivery. In critiques of her recorded broadcasts, Hall coached her on how to push the limits of controversy and, above all, keep listeners guessing about what she might say next. And it worked. The station groomed her for bigger things. Beginning as a weekend part-timer in 1993, she was promoted to command of the four-hour overnight shift on weeknights, attracting an ever larger audience of insomniacs numbering in the tens of thousands.

And then came The Tammy's mysterious denouement last summer.

At first glance, her abrupt disappearance from the radio -- without so much as an official word of explanation from the station -- appeared to illustrate what happens when a mere contract player entrusted with something as powerful as the public airwaves goes mano a mano against Hollywood royalty. In the aftermath of her banishment, especially considering its timing, it was widely assumed that Bruce had been let go because of the Cosby remarks. KFI certainly spun the story that way to the media. "You hire class clowns to be class clowns, and then you get upset when they act like class clowns," observed industry insider Tomm Looney, coming to Tammy's defense in a column for the online Radio Digest. But something about the Bruce affair didn't smell right. Radio personalities with strong ratings rarely get fired. And even as she was being shown the door, Bruce had just registered a fifth straight quarterly audience share increase, or up book, as measured by Arbitron. Sending her home with pay, station officials announced that they were conducting an "investigation" of the Cosby broadcast, being careful to avoid mentioning exactly why Bruce was no longer around. At the same time, KFI placed Bruce under a gag order, implicitly threatening that if she opened her mouth, she stood to forfeit thousands of dollars owed to her under a personal services contract.

Call this 50,000-watt tongue-lashing of a mother grieving the loss of her only son insensitive, tasteless, even outrageous -- but it wasn't boring.

Meanwhile, the Cosbys were complaining behind the scenes that they had been defamed, leading to a highly-unusual on-air retraction by KFI on August 20, nearly seven weeks after the offending broadcast. In a groveling, pre-recorded apology that lasted nearly five minutes (an eternity in radio) -- and, amazingly, was rebroadcast eight times -- program director Hall essentially made his employee, Bruce, out to be a liar. "She made various comments about Mrs. Cosby and her husband, Bill Cosby, that were unfounded, mean-spirited, or simply inappropriate," said Hall in the audio apology. He noted that "specifically, Mrs. Cosby was characterized as 'unstable,' 'crazy,' 'paranoid,' 'delusional,' 'just nuts,' and the like....We had no information about Mrs. Cosby's mental health; these characterizations were merely intended to reflect Tammy's vigorous disagreement with the views expressed [in the USA Today essay]....While it was entirely appropriate to voice disagreement with Mrs. Cosby's views, these statements were excessive." Hall then proceeded to describe other statements by Bruce as cruel, extreme, and insensitive. "While [Bruce] is entitled to her opinion," he said, "she went too far."

Leaving aside that opinion and hyperbole are constitutionally protected forms of speech, this sudden outburst of probity seemed almost laughable coming from a station that routinely ridicules women, minorities, and gays, advances loony conspiracy theories, and unleashes the ravings of Rush Limbaugh on a daily basis. Even more curious, the apology sheared off the nuances of what Bruce had actually said on the show.

For example, Bruce had remarked: "Now let me just...if you didn't know who you were dealing with, you would say she [Camille] was incredibly unstable." And: "If she is taking this stand, is this what others must be thinking, or is she just nuts?" And: "If this is what she really thinks, they're [Bill and Camille] either extraordinary hypocrites, or she's extraordinarily unstable, and I don't think she's unstable."

But if KFI's apology sounded as if it had been scripted by the Cosbys or their lawyers, that's because largely it was. The station had taken a lengthy apology drafted by Cosby attorney John H. Lavely Jr., which the couple wanted Bruce to read. It began with, "On my radio show...," and essentially replaced the personal pronoun "I" with the institutional "We." Bruce, who earlier insisted she had done nothing wrong and offered to read a mild apology of her own (the station rejected it), took one look at the Lavely script and pronounced it "erroneous and outrageously destructive" of her career. The silenced Bruce told her KFI bosses that if they broadcast it, they could expect her to sue them for defamation.

One reason management may have seemed eager to sell Bruce down the river was because of its protracted negotiations with the Cosbys over how to respond to the broadcast, even though, according to a well-placed source, the station's own attorneys saw no lingering libel problems that a simple retraction wouldn't cure. Lawyers for Bruce insisted that what the Cosbys wanted was massive overkill. Sources say the Cosbys originally had asked KFI to publish the apology in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. (How that would have done anything but greatly amplify the purported harm is difficult to imagine.) The demand was soon dropped, sources say, but the Cosbys still insisted that KFI, or its parent, Cox Broadcasting, donate up to $500,000 to the nonprofit Ennis Cosby Foundation as part of any settlement. It is not known how much, if any, money the station forked over. Cosby publicist David Brokaw brushed aside questions about the settlement but said the Cosbys had "absolutely not" encouraged KFI to get rid of Bruce. As far as the Cosbys are concerned, he says, "the station's apology speaks for itself and provides closure to a regrettable situation."