Jimmy the Greek. Al Campanis. Jackie Mason. Add the name of Andy Rooney to the roll call of media loose lips. The furor keeps escalating over Rooney's 90-day suspension from CBS for his comments about gays and his alleged remarks about blacks. Minority groups are grumbling about fairness, pundits are punditing about the First Amendment, and the network has received more than 4,000 calls, almost all of them urging Rooney's reinstatement.
All this seems a lot of hoopla, given the fact that the 71-year-old 60 Minutes curmudgeon usually zeros in on fail-safe targets like health clubs, cereal and encyclopedia salesmen. But...