GOSSIP. Everybody's bitching and moan ing about gossip. There's even gossip about gossip editors like Bonnie Ful ler. There's gossip about is Tom Cruise a he-she-or-it, will Angelina Jolie try to heal every leper colony in Africa, can it be someone's already stuffed Dick Cheney, anyone noticed that George Clooney has stopped gossiping about the gossip about him.

Gossip has always been around. In the early days of our God-Bless-Us nation Benjamin Franklin, when not organizing our country, looking for his eyeglasses or telling someone to go fly a kite, actually wrote this republic's first gossip column. Think of it this way, what good is something if nobody knows you know it? Everybody tells. It's television, telephone, telecommunications, teletype, telex, tell a friend.

Gossip is actually a noble profession. Its root is the word "gospel." And the first four gossips? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Pay attention, kiddies. Mother is talking The Bible here. Six days a week I'm actually doing holy work.

Gossip began before the earth cooled. It probably even pre-dated "60 Minutes." Back in antediluvian times, down at the riverbed, as they beat their men folks' shorts with a club, Neanderthal Nancy would grunt how Cro-Magnon Charlie tried to pull off her loincloth.

Stars need it to hustle their movie or flag their career. Maybe it irritates them but they themselves can be irritating. Hollywood is Fear USA. The big names are always looking behind them. Someone else is creeping up who's younger, thinner, prettier, taller, cheaper, willinger, easier, looser. They're all scared. We're talking survival. Insecurity. They're afraid it won't last. Afraid outsiders may divine that this emperor or empress without clothes is really not all that talented or brilliant or good looking. Afraid they'll get a pimple or fat or old, afraid they'll flop, afraid someone will actually get to see who they really are.

Whatever the engine, they're different. Larger than life. If a top-of-the-line big shot gets a cold, his assistant sneezes and his go-fer carries the Kleenex. The certified super-famous are just not like you and me. A leading lady's on vacation? She imports her therapist to be with her. A leading man's in Istanbul and his favorite barber isn't? He jets home, gets a trim, jets back, or flies the hair-stylist in.

Three noses ago a Michael Jackson would travel with five aides, two bodyguards, two small bodies he might personally want to guard, an umbrella for inside the plane, his own chef, own food, own cooler, own ice cubes and a surgical mask that was removed only to change noses. A Brad Pitt-type takes his wife for richer or poorer then sniffs around and says, "But on second thought I think I'll take that one." A Jessica Simpson? Who repeatedly says how she loves her husband whatever his name is and how she wishes icky sticky picky reporters would stop saying her marriage is going up the poop and then, as she's shopping, says all she really wants is to help Angelina heal those pesky lepers in Africa.

And mankind thinks nobody should write about this stuff? We shouldn't report it? We should consider it normal behavior? We should never, ever mention it?

Attention Mr. & Ms. America and all the ships at sea: You don't think stuff like this is sort of interesting to report?

Take New York's social scene. Its currency is gossip. The New York Post is as needful to existence as a Rolodex. In New York the greatest centerpiece for any hostess is whoever's fresh out of jail. In this town if a guy's a recently released felon all he needs for a major party is a blue suit and he'll have to fight off the dinner invitations. Why? He's a one of a kind. Every guest around the table will ring a friend next day to gossip about whom they sat alongside at dinner.

Everybody gossips. Inside the White House, Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice would tell guests, "If you have nothing nice to say about anyone, come sit right here beside me." Jackie O loved dish. A reigning queen once asked me, "Can you gossip a little about your first lady?"

Ready for this one? Frau Gertraude Junge, who had been private secretary to Hitler, relayed this to a journalist. Now gone, she was then in her 70s and had a neat, one-room flat on a quiet side street in Munich. Her only standout possessions were the framed photos everywhere. Snapshots of herself with Adolf. She said, "Part of my job was to give gossip to the Fuehrer. When we had dinner parties at the Berchtesgaden, my duty was to arrange the evenings with people like Himmler, who was a very nice, quiet man. And to relax the Fuehrer. What he liked most was gossip. I always had to prepare for him gossip."

From the dawn of time to the Holy Gospels to the Fuehrer to Us magazine . . .