ROONEY EARNS HIS FEW MINUTES.

Byline: PHIL ROSENTHAL 

You call to congratulate an old-timer on getting to keep his job. After a few minutes with Andy Rooney, however, you are not entirely convinced that he can.

Rooney put his employment to a referendum Sunday. He used his biweekly ``A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney'' segment on CBS' ``60 Minutes'' to respond to a critic's assertion that the show ``would be better off without'' him. Rooney asked viewers to call Associated Press headquarters and vote on whether he should go away.

``60 Minutes'' has approximately 26 million viewers, according to CBS. And, according to Associated Press spokeswoman Tori Smith on Tuesday, nearly 7,000 calls had been logged, all but a few saying Rooney should not retire.

``Not for a few weeks, anyway,'' Rooney, 77, says from his New York office.

You note that he seems to be everyone's cranky neighbor - the guy who is constantly telling the neighborhood kids to get off of his lawn. The description gets Rooney to laugh and recall a piece he says he has been trying to get on ``60 Minutes'' for some time now.

He marvels that, with riding mowers becoming more prevalent, it seems to him that more and more women are mowing lawns.

``It doesn't happen out there,'' he jokes. ``You guys all have Mexicans mowing your lawns. ... You have those slaves.''

Slaves?

But before you can ask what he meant by any of that, he quickly says goodbye.

``It was probably a dumb thing to say,'' he explains a couple of hours later from his Connecticut home. ``But when we were talking about doing the piece on women mowing lawns, somebody said they didn't think people would get it in California because people there don't mow their own lawns. They hire Mexicans.''

As for the fact that some people might be offended by the remark, he says: ``Who? Rich people in Beverly Hills?''

What about the Mexicans?

``It is true that these people hire cheap workers and many of them are Mexicans, isn't it?''

Now, Rooney is no stranger to controversy. Other impolitic and indiscreet remarks over the years have gotten him and ``60 Minutes'' into hot water, yet both have endured.

But ``60 Minutes,'' a venerable institution with a venerable staff, is facing heated competition from NBC's ``Dateline NBC,'' and no element of the show is seen as invulnerable. The Associated Press critic who caught Rooney's ire called his contributions out of step, aging and old.

``I'm thin-skinned,'' says Rooney, who is in his 18th season on ``60 Minutes.'' ``It was particularly nasty.''

It also came just as ``60 Minutes'' executive producer Don Hewitt, 73, had signed younger commentators Stanley Crouch, Molly Ivins and P.J. O'Rourke to join the program, a move that Rooney himself initially perceived as a threat.

``But I talked to both Hewitt and (CBS News president) Andrew Heyward, who absolutely convinced me that it has nothing to do with me,'' Rooney says. ``And I'm a tough person to convince of anything.''

Rooney says he has no plans to retire. The bottom line, he says, is that ``if I weren't attracting viewers, they'd fire me.''

So, you understand what's at stake for him, and so does he.

``You do what you have to do,'' he says.

And he undoubtedly will.

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Photo

Photo: Andy Rooney - no stranger to criticism - is weatheri ng another storm.