Mr. Rooney was flying with the 8th Air Force in early '43, when it was second only to the Phillipine garrison as the highest casualty unit in the American army.
However easy its become to mock his mannerisms, or his profession of comforting the aging 60 Minutes audience with jabs at easy targets, he often chose his targets well. I feel much the same about many of them, like Mr. Cobain.
I remember getting shit for defending him back in the day, when he walked out on Ali G. He sort of reminds me of that old bastard from the movie "Up!". I just like Andy Rooney. I can't really explain it. He's like the grandfather I never had, his rambling wisdom ever so slightly kissed by the first flames of senility. Perhaps more than slightly on bad days, I admit freely.
I don't claim he's brilliant or even particularly insightful. Yet I can not help but admire the passion with which he attacks subjects I would consider to be completely without merit. The brutal honesty and analysis with which he deals with the inconsequential things that trouble him. It's as if he's a precursor to Jerry Seinfeld.
He has hair growing in funny places, and I have an inexplicable urge to play with his jowls. I am not one to defend this sickness I have. I recognize it for what it is, and nurse this shameful madness furtively in the dark. Since Jerry Orbach died, Andy is all I have left!
I like this man! If Caminante can have his big eyed prepubescents, then I should be able to have this, god damn it!
I don't know where everyone gets the idea that he goes after easy targets. He goes after targets that belie his crippling insanity.
Are people who carry things "easy targets"? They were just asking for someone to point out that they carry things, and that this is different from the two remaining memories of people left to Andy Rooney?
If all he went after was easy targets, as someone else mentioned, he'd just be the world's oldest and sitting downest stand-up comedian/hack. As it stands he is a towering monument to the irrelevance of old people.