Word: gossiper
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...central tragedy of Johnson and the war--the master politician, after so many years of being attuned to the subtleties of electoral opinion, suddenly lost touch with the nation's growing disillusionment over the war. Miller throws the MacPherson interview out as if it were one more bit of gossip, just another interview, instead of using it as a focal point to organize some interpretation of Johnson's failures...
This is not to say that Johnson's interviews and bits of gossip are not interesting as isolated bits of historical trivia; many are funny and revealing. But strung together they provide only a fragmented and incomplete view of Johnson's life. At their best these anecdotes do provide insight--but less about Johnson than about the individual being interviewed...
Perhaps Cunningham had muddied the waters by appoaring with Agee at quasi-social events (like the Republican National Convention) and by speaking of him in terms like, "He is the finest human being I've ever met." And Agee certainly made matter worse by trying to dispel the gossip in front of a public meeting of 600 employees. Both Agee and Cunningham have acknowledged their relationship as mentor and protege. In business, that type of relationship is not only customary, but often promoted at business schools as the key to success. And women, precisely because they have not yet been...
Death, of course, is life's largest irony. Mortality tolled through Leonard's best-known play, "Da "; in Summer it rustles through the sunlit grass on a verdant hilltop near Dublin. The year is 1968, and three middle-aged couples rendezvous for a picnic. Food, wine, gossip and nostalgic reminiscences mask tiny tremors of apprehension and isolation...
...Nobody ever wants to be reminded that he has engaged in gossip. When the object of that gossip steps forward to remind the rumormonger of such a thing, that person becomes an enemy. As long as rumor remains fuzzy, it can be almost wistful. But when confronted openly, the rumormonger suddenly feels that he must truly believe what he has merely been fantasizing. Zealot is pitted against zealot. Carnage ensues...