Word: gossiper
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Which leaves Wendy Abt, unquestionably the most controversial candidate in the race. Every political conversation includes some gossip about Abt; no analyst can figure out exactly how she'll fare. She was repudiated by city tenants at a late-summer convention setting up a possible split in city progressive ranks (see story page). And she has been embraced by many self-styled moderates, for what is perceived as a "flexible" stand on housing issues like rent control and condominium conversion. If Abt runs well, it may be due less to the support of traditional CCA voters than to the backing...
After dispensing opinions on the economy and President Reagan's foreign policy, the Washington columnists on Martin Agronsky's television show turned animatedly to a subject closer to heart. George F. Will was the most intense about it: "The presence of a gossip column on a great paper, which the Post is, is inconsistent with the mission and dignity of the Washington Post." Printing gossip, he went on, is "pandering to the voyeurism of a celebrity-struck public. When you then combine [this] with the doctrine that says we are not responsible for the factual nature...
...morality? Naah. He sees bureaucrats running seminars on wasteful office management, secretaries seducing bosses for Elizabeth Ray-style autobiographies, and PR moguls trying to sell oppressive Latin American regimes to hick Congressmen. As long as the elite gather in dark Connecticut Ave. bistros to eat lousy steaks and exchange gossip, Buchwald will be in business, for that is his Washington...
...Gossip is transitional between things merely said, or even half said, and positions taken in the public domain. Gossip is a training ground for both self-clarification and public moral action...
...Gossip is the layman's mythmaker and moralist, the small, idle interior puppet-theater in which he tries out new plays, new parts for himself...