Anyone who can attract the scorn of Jeffrey Simpson, Allan Fotheringham, Dalton Camp, Michael Valpy and Gerry Caplan, all in the space of four days, can't be all good. Surely John Crispo has some faults worth mentioning?

The unanimous contention of this crop of worthies is that the University of Toronto management professor is unfit to sit on the board of the CBC, to which he has lately been named by Prime Minister Mulroney, by virtue of certain critical comments he made about the corporation at a recent CRTC hearing.

Critical comments is perhaps too mild. Crispo roasted the CBC for ''deliberate, continued and repeated intellectual dishonesty in virtually all of its news and public affairs programming.'' He also called it ''that lousy, left-wing, liberal NDP pinko network,'' but that was just for effect.

Nonetheless his outburst, and subsequent apointment, plainly scandalized our journalistic Mount Rushmore, several of whom, disarmingly, are themselves CBC regulars. ''It's the Tories' final insult to public broadcasting,'' harrumphed Simpson. ''Unsavory . . . intolerable . . . indefensible,'' wheezed Camp. ''Sheer moral corruption,'' was Caplan's verdict, pronouncing Crispo not only ''warped and unbalanced,'' but - worse - a white male.

Not far behind was Fotheringham, who decided it was a ''cynical appointment'' designed to play well among ''the rednecks'' out in ''the tall grass,'' which apparently is anywhere west of Bistro 990. But the man who started it all, it appears, was Valpy. (He may not be done yet: it's only been four columns.)

One of two interpretations can explain the dismay Crispo's tirade has excited. Either (1) his comments were wrong, or (2) he was wrong to have made them. If the first, then it is curious that one of the most common indictments against him is that he was in favor of free trade. Crispo, notes Valpy, ''is a continentalist who strongly supports the free trade agreement.'' The CBC is apparently so impartial that free traders cannot even serve on its board.

Crispo's critics would insist it is not his views on free trade that matter so much as his vocal and public attacks on the CBC. Camp, among others, worries that Crispo is a ''hired gun'' with a message: support the government, or else. Understand? The CBC's journalistic integrity is so unimpeachable as to invite the entire massed Boy's Choir of the Canadian media establishment down upon the heads of any doubters, but the moment it catches a hint of Tory displeasure, the corporation will roll over and, in Camp's words, ''suck up.''

But the implication, that to be critical of a public institution is to disqualify oneself as a director, cannot be left unexamined. Let's take another recent subject of Valpy's columns, Susan Eng, whose election as the personal choice of NDP Premier Bob Rae for chairman of the Metro Toronto police board was confirmed about the same time as Crispo's CBC appointment. Like Crispo, Eng is ambitious, self-important and not shy of publicity - what the Toronto Sun described as a ''media-happy dilettante.'' Both have a penchant for saying silly things - Crispo's ''pinko'' routine, or Eng's proposal to force gun-owners to keep their firearms in public armories.

Eng's confrontational style as a member of the police board, and her readiness to back critics of the police, especially in matters of race, has likewise labelled her ''anti-police,'' a ''cop-basher.'' So naturally her appointment - not just as a director, mind: chairman - aroused much opposition. Imagine Crispo getting Patrick Watson's job and you have a rough equivalent.

Now, I'm sure Eng will do a fine job, and I think Crispo's mostly off-base - not because the CBC doesn't have a bias, but because it isn't an ideological bias: it's an aesthetic bias, favoring emotion over reason, certainty over doubt, action over inaction, because these are the stuff of drama, and news is theatre. The CBC, what is more, is hardly alone in this regard.

But what applies to Eng applies to Crispo. Valpy supports her appointment, arguing, correctly, that the public is ill-served by a board made up entirely of cheerleaders for the police. Replace the police with the CBC, and you have a pretty good case why Crispo, like Eng, is exactly the sort of gadfly you want on the board of any public institution.

Unlike Crispo, however, Eng can count on well-placed admirers to fill the papers with sympathetic prose in her defence. Crispo just has me - and I don't even like him that much.