BookOpinion

Al Gore’s new book “The Assault on Reason” is now ranked as No. 3 on Amazon’s bestseller list. The book was released last week and has been climbing the charts.

The New York Times writes:

…Mr. Gore’s central argument is that “reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions” and that the country’s public discourse has become “less focused and clear, less reasoned.” This “assault on reason,” he suggests, is personified by the way the Bush White House operates. Echoing many reporters and former administration insiders, Mr. Gore says that the administration tends to ignore expert advice (be it on troop levels, global warming or the deficit), to circumvent the usual policy-making machinery of analysis and debate, and frequently to suppress or disdain the best evidence available on a given subject so it can promote predetermined, ideologically driven policies……When Mr. Gore turns to the larger cultural and social reasons behind the decline of reason in America’s marketplace of ideas, his arguments become fuzzier and less convincing. His argument that radio was essential to the rise and reign of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini (“without the introduction of radio, it is doubtful that these totalitarian regimes would have commanded the obedience of the people in the manner they did”) is highly reductive, just as his argument that television has enabled politicians to manipulate mass opinion while preventing individuals from taking part in the national dialogue seems overly simplistic.

As for his conviction that the Internet can help re-establish “an open communications environment in which the conversation of democracy can flourish,” it plays down the more troubling aspects of the Web, like its promotion of rumor and misinformation alongside real information, and its tendency to fuel polarizing, partisan warfare.

Part civics lesson, part political jeremiad, part philosophical tract, “The Assault on Reason” reveals an angry, impassioned Al Gore — a far cry from the carefully scripted, earth-tone-wearing Al Gore of the 2000 presidential campaign and the programmed “creature of Washington” described in the reporter Bill Turque’s 2000 biography of him, “Inventing Al Gore.”

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Joe Conason chimes in, as well, for the L.A. Times:

…To anyone paying attention over the last few decades, the underlying causes that Gore identifies will be familiar, including the ascendancy of mindless television, the domination of corporate money, the concentration of ownership in influential media and the decline of engaged citizenship. In “The Assault on Reason,” he lingers over those well-worn topics and others, employing the same didactic method that used to provoke irritation or even ridicule during his hotly contested presidential campaign.

Yet Gore’s professorial style, with its touches of sarcasm, omniscient tone, erudite asides, and yes, its occasional exasperated sighs, elicits a different response today than it did seven years ago. Many of the same publications that once poured scorn on him now offer up paragraph after paragraph of admiring prose…

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The New Editor blog pokes fun at the title:

Is anybody else as struck by the irony of the chosen title for Al Gore’s latest book, The Assault on Reason?

This from a politician that once exclaimed that Bill Clinton was “the greatest president ever.”

Or from a politician who as vice president headed up the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, which had as one of its missions the elimination of federal government jobs — more than 80% of which came from the Defense Department…

…Of course the author once famously said, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”…

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See who else is blogging about the book, here.

Gore talks about The Assault on Reason on the Daily Show:

The audio version of this book is also available for instant download at these sites: