Tolerance of Bigotry Has Run Out : Jimmy Breslin: The columnist flew into a rage. Now it’s the debate about what he said that’s raging.

Last Friday, Jimmy Breslin burst out of his office at New York Newsday and spouted off sexist and racist invectives against an Asian-American colleague, a reporter, who had written an internal memo complaining of sexism in his column. Newsday has suspended him for two weeks without pay. Following are two views on the controversy.

Remember that another great newspaper sage, H. L. Mencken, also was revealed to be a hateful, narrow-minded old man when his diary was published. Jimmy (The Greek) Snyder and CBS-TV commentator Andy Rooney proved to be hopelessly out of their depth regarding the latest developments in genetic research.

But our tolerance of bigotry and stupidity has run out. The statute of limitations has expired. The world has changed.

Today, we have new standards of wisdom, and Mencken, Rooney and Snyder do not measure up.

Neither does Breslin. Rage is no excuse. Newsday ought to run somebody else’s column. Perhaps someone younger. Perhaps someone whose attitudes are not mired in America’s racist past.

Newspapers, like other corporations, make an effort not to hire idiots and morons, as well as incompetents, perverts, criminals, liars, subversives, drug addicts and fools.

The issue for industry is fairly clear: Fools, liars, thieves and incompetents cost them money. They injure the corporate image.

To my knowledge, companies do not test for bigotry and sexism, but maybe they ought to start. Bigotry and sexism, as Newsday may discover, can be just as expensive and just as embarrassing.