Intrusions into politicians' lives are now such an accepted part of political coverage that it's difficult to conceive of a time when gossip didn't play a role in American politics. That's just as well, however, because Gail Collins' witty new book Scorpion Tongues makes it clear that there never really was such a time. It's just that the roles gossip and scandal have played have taken on different forms over the years. Bill Clinton may have to deal with embarrassingly intimate details of his (alleged) extramarital sex life being dragged before the public, but he hasn't had to deal with major newspapers, without qualification, accusing him of providing women for foreign powers, which was one of the allegations against John Quincy Adams. Such wild claims, not all of them false, were common in early American politics. In fact, the perception that public mudslinging and dirty campaigning are recent developments, Collins argues, has to do with the media's hands-off policy toward politicians' private lives—one that spanned roughly from the turn of the century through Watergate. It's in covering this period that Collins is often at her best, addressing the ways in which the general public could be duped, in part by its own willingness to be duped, into believing that FDR had full use of his legs. Her commentary on the containment of what would today be major scandals—did you hear the one about the presidential aide arrested at the YMCA?—is particularly enlightening. Though occasionally short on details, Collins consistently and effectively captures historical attitudes toward scandal and the means by which it is conveyed. Scorpion Tongues works best, however, as an entertaining collection of dirty secrets, and it's served well by the author's ear for choosing just the right quote or tiny detail to illustrate the absurdity of a given anecdote. It may be more high-minded, and it may have more interesting things to say about history and sociological trends, but Collins, whether she intended to or not, has essentially written Washington's equivalent of Hollywood Babylon. It probably won't change the way you look at politics in any substantial way, but it sure is entertaining.