Items related to Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, And American Politics
Did Hillary Clinton throw a lamp at Bill on Inauguration Eve 1993? 'What ex-professional football player, known for a squeaky clean image, got caught in bed with a sexy woman and claimed it was all a set up? Who started the rumor about Mamie Eisenhower's drinking problems? About Richard Gere's interesting sexual partners? Did you know George Bush and Bob Dole had mistresses?
Some of these things are true -- others are just rumors -- but all of them were gossiped about, and they are just a delicious sampling of the unforgettable tidbits offered up in the bewitching Scorpion Tongues.
Gail Collins has pulled together an immensely appealing, bag-o'- popcorn book, with one intriguing piece of rumor and innuendo following another in a veritable parade of peccadillos and misdeeds. But Collins also explores the more serious effects of gossip, noting that it can be as unpredictable as a summer tornado, flattening one person's reputation while passing over another's with hardly a rustle. Compare, for example, Gary Hart's career-ending "Monkey Business" trip with JFK's conquest of a stewardess, which he confessed to by flippantly saying, "I got into the blonde." 'With anecdotes and illustrations from politics, movies, television, culture, and sports, Scorpion Tongues offers sinful scandals and mild hearsay for every taste.
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Review:
If you think the stories about Bill Clinton are outrageous, Gail Collins has some tales that will really burn your ears. Scandalous rumors have been a part of American politics since the days of George Washington's alleged mistresses and Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Grover Cleveland was rumored to have beaten his wife so severely during her pregnancy that their daughter was born with extensive brain damage. When Woodrow Wilson proposed to his second wife, a popular joke claimed, she was so surprised that she fell out of bed. And John Fremont's 1856 run for office was destroyed by repeated whisperings that he was, variously, illegitimate, Catholic, and a cannibal. Collins insightfully traces the relationship between gossip and government from an era when politics was the national pastime to the present blurring of the lines between politicians and celebrities.
About the Author:
Gail Collins, a columnist for the New York Times, was the the first woman ever to serve as editorial page editor for the paper. Previously, she was a member of the Times editorial board, and a columnist for the New York Daily News and New York Newsday.
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- PublisherWilliam Morrow
- Publication date1998
- ISBN 10 0688149146
- ISBN 13 9780688149147
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages320
- Rating
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Scorpion Tongues, Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics
Published by
William Morrow, NYC
(1998)
ISBN 10: 0688149146
ISBN 13: 9780688149147
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Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, And American Politics
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SCORPION TONGUES: GOSSIP, CELEBR
Published by
William Morrow
(1998)
ISBN 10: 0688149146
ISBN 13: 9780688149147
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