Indians Denounce Rooney Remarks

“60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney is in trouble with Indian groups over what they say were bigoted remarks about Indian casinos.

In a Sunday commentary sparked by the New York Legislature’s rejection of legalized gambling, the show’s resident curmudgeon said that casinos don’t produce anything except “piles of cash for sleazeball owners.”

Most casinos on Indian land are under management that is “about as Indian as I am,” he said. Noting reports about Indians at the snowbound Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, Rooney said: “Why don’t the Indian casinos making hundreds of millions of tax-free dollars help their own people?”

Keller George, a member of the Oneida Nation in upstate New York and president of the 23-tribe United South and Eastern Tribes, said Rooney’s comments were “highly insulting and offensive” to Indians everywhere.

Many tribes run their own casinos or oversee non-Indian managers, he said.