Scorpion Tongues New and Updated Edition: Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics
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From Thomas Jefferson to William Jefferson Clinton, SCORPION TONGUES is a popular history of gossip in American politics. Complete with wickedly delightful anecdotes of major and minor politicians and entertainers over the last 200 years, Gail Collins examines the evolving relationship between politicians and the press and the blurring of the lines between politicians and celebrities. Supported by extensive research and written with an entertaining flair, she speculates on how gossip reflects the current moral compass of the time, noting how a rumor, like an unpredictable summer tornado, can flatten one reputation while a similar story passes over another with hardly a rustle. "Hilariously readable" (The Economist), SCORPION TONGUES offers sinful scandals and mild hearsay for every taste.
Customer Review: Gossip & Fun
This book is the greatest hits album of professional political muckrakers. Just when you think that they can not come up with something more despicable you turn the page and - bang, one more story full of lies and broken careers. The author lays the book out chronologically so that we start with the founding father and the hits just keep on coming all the way to the current high level of performance. If you are interested in politics and follow the scene then this book is not some much shocking as it is full of "that's where they got it from". If politics is a new hobby then your opinion of these stand up citizens will not drop lower. Overall, this is a fun book that you finish quite quickly
Customer Review: What They Didn't Teach You About American History
This is a very readable and informative book about the parts of American History that never appear in the official school books. And not because of its unimportance! There's the story of Peggy Eaton, and how she caused the Civil War (p.43). How William Chancellor's home was raided by Secret Service agents who forced him to burn his papers; later the FBI seized copies of his book from libraries, stores, and salesmen, even confiscating and destroying the publication plates without any legal authorization (p.127). How the Republican National Committee shipped Harding's mistress and husband on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Far East in 1920, and a $2000 monthly payoff in hush money. The author says that newspapers of the 1920s kept the stories about Harding unpublished because "there was no real appetite for that kind of story" (p.130). I think its more likely that 1) we now had a "secret police on the European model", and 2) the increasing monopolization of newspapers allowed more control and censorship. Some may think only some weekly newspapers market scandals, but don't recognize this as a niche market. The facts that supermarkets nationwide were told to market weekly tabloids around 1967 isn't mentioned, or the cause. The book says movie stars replaced politicians (and the rich?) in the 1920s as objects of gossip. When Fatty Arbuckle was found not guilty of murder on the third trial after six minutes of deliberation the press wondered "about what was wrong with the system of justice and whether it was possible for a celebrity to get a fair trial in America" (p.140). Pages 144-5 tell of the rumors and gossip about FDR: he was a drunk, going insane, addicted to drugs, even that he was a "hopeless, helpless invalid". Pages 175-6 explain how memories become improved decades after the events: reading history backwards. Pages 183-6 tell of the Walter Jenkins scandal of Oct 1964. The author omits the fact that Walter Jenkins was a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, and served under General Barry Goldwater. LBJ's first reaction was to assume a plot to affect the election. I wonder is there's a reason for Goldwater's later statements? In 1972 Senator Thomas Eagleton was dropped as a VP candidate when they found he had been "hospitalized three times for mental illness and depression" (p.190). Watergate opened the door to printed political gossip that has pestered, or enriched, the news from Washington DC. One effect was a huge increase in college journalism students then. Ronald Reagan was the first president who was divorced. There was no sexual gossip about the 70 year old Reagan; nobody told of his bad memory, either. He was the first president whose staff wrote tell-all books while he was still in the White house (p.224). Pages 228-232 discuss Senator John Tower and his failure to be voted Secretary of Defense in 1989 due to his drinking and womanizing. I heard the real reason was Senator Tower's earlier whitewash of the "Contragate" investigation; he wasn't trusted. Pages 247-8 tell how rumors and were used to try to influence the selection of Speaker of the House circa 1990. You can watch the "Tonight Show" to see how jokes and phony videos are used to shape people's thinking on current issues. The hired tongues on local "talk radio" may provide other examples or rumors from nearly anonymous sources. Page 267 says that people react angrily to scandals about a famous person's private life only when the reality contradicts the image. A politician known for drinking, gambling, and kissing any woman within reach can't be ruined except by a Federal indictment and conviction. A Louisiana Governor said no scandal would harm him unless he was found in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. The author says gossip meets human needs by sharing secrets that are normally hidden, etc. (p.6). I think its people's way to bring down the high and mighty as just another human. To quote from a folksong of the 60s, "even the President goes".
