The Assault on Reason [Hardcover]

 

 

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The American political scene has shifted greatly since 2000 in ways that most Republicans like and most Democrats do not. Although Al Gore's title suggests a broader topic, The Assault on Reason focuses on the Bush methods of running the government and the Republican Party. As you might imagine, Al Gore doesn't like anything about what has happened.

If you were to boil this book down into one single idea, it would be this: Absolute power corrupts absolutely and is a danger to us all. Gore takes the point of view that the Bush administration has been and is mostly about gaining and holding power in order to reward Republicans and those who pay for Republicans to be elected.

As examples, Gore cites the following evidence:

1. The administration always knew that there never was any connection between terrorist attacks and Iraq (nor any threat of weapons of mass destruction being produced in Iraq), but made invading Iraq a high priority for pursuing its oil-focused strategy of controlling the Middle East where major oil companies and contributing contractors have been rewarded.

2. The Bush administration seeks to maximize fear of terrorism to gain ever more power for itself, usually by ignoring the limits on government power in the Constitution.

3. Fund-raising for Congressional Republicans is now controlled by the White House so the administration hasn't had any oversight from either party in Congress, a sharp departure from past practices.

4. When the president signs a new piece of legislation, he almost always indicates that he won't follow the law that was enacted (this has occurred over 1000 times). As a result, President Bush operates as though he is free from any legal restraint, including treaties that the United States has signed and honored for decades.

5. The Justice Department has been used to punish political enemies rather than seeking to enforce the law in a fair way.

6. Judges (who are supposed to be independent) are threatened with violent rhetoric and having their courts discontinued while they are wooed by special interests at high-priced seminars that serve as vacations.

7. Special interests that support Republicans make all the Bush policy decisions in secret, often contrary to the best evidence of what's in the public interest.

Against this backdrop of raw political hardball, Gore points out that the electorate isn't in the ball game. Most people don't know that Congress and the courts are supposed to be a restraint on presidential power. About half the electorate still thinks Saddam Hussein was the guiding force behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11. People prefer to see news reports about celebrities than news reports about public issues. When the president sponsors legislation that says it's a "Clean Air Act" hardly anyone knows that the bill will actually make air dirtier.

What's the diagnosis?

1. Restore balance between the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government.

2. Start debating major decisions with emphasis on looking carefully at the best evidence.

3. Re-establish the rule of law.

Those ideas will be appealing to those who are deeply steeped in the history of how the U.S. government evolved. But in the last 40 years, schools have done little to teach about how government is supposed to operate. Polls show that many people favor having the government run like a CEO leads a private company, with no role for the legislators, judges, and citizens.

I think the remedy has to be a lot more fundamental, starting with recreating a consensus on what it means to be a citizen of the United States, what proper government behavior is, and what the United States wants to stand for in the world.

The book has three weaknesses that you should keep in mind when you read it:

1. There's no discussion of the inherent problems of having political parties in the government system that our founding fathers created. The original idea they had was to avoid parties. The solution lasted about as long as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were able to stay friends. Much of what Gore decries is an outgrowth of greater partisan battling. What's to stop a continuing escalation of that trend?

2. In the area of public debate, Gore relies a lot on the idea that experts usually know the answers. But that's not always true. In addition, what the experts know if often incomprehensible to everyone else. How effectively can you debate such technical issues when most government leaders were primarily trained to be lawyers and the general electorate has little technical knowledge?

3. The essence of getting elected is to create a temporary coalition of voters. Voters mostly look for "someone like me." That's a pretty big disconnect between proposing an approach to having philosopher-kings (of the sort that Plato liked to write about) who even-handedly make careful decisions that benefit everyone.

You may also find yourself wanting to snooze a bit as Gore describes brain physiology to explain why television is the guilty party for many of our anti-thinking woes.

But, all in all, this is a book that should spark a lot of public discussion. That would be good.

If you don't know much about the political theory behind our methods of governing over the last 200 years and the history of the U.S. government, this book will be even more enlightening. Gore is at his best in citing sources that capture the essence of those perspectives.

The transformation of Al Gore from the dull Washington lifer who once made the preposterous claim that he invented the Internet to Nobel Peace Prize winner and savior of Planet Earth has really been quite remarkable.

In "The Assault on Reason", Gore attempts to parlay his success as environmental activist back into political commentator. As much as I love Gore 2.0, I can't give this book 2 thumbs up.

There are two major gripes that have with this anti-bush polemic. First, the book is completely devoid of original content. Gore stitches together a series of borrowed analyzes and passes them off as his own original argument. Second, while it is easy and indeed convenient to preach from the New Left pulpit and "kick a man while he's down", Gore neglects to admit the many democratic party plunders over the past 60 years that have been equally destructive and irrational.

It is truly unfortunate that the only "Assault on Reason" is the one on this book. After watching and reading his brilliant "An Inconvenient Truth", it appeared "The New Gore" was back with a vengeance only to fall from grace with this regrettable book.

As the technologies of war give shifting advantage to the means of offense or defense, so the means of public debate have shifted to favor certain interests over others. Gore surveys the changing health of public discourse through the recent ages of print, radio, television and the internet. He gives eyewitness accounts of how these shifts have affected US government operations. And he finds us just starting to emerge from an age of one-way communication via television, controlled by those able to afford huge broadcasting expenses, in which vested interests found an expanding capacity to control the flow of information.

Gore does not simplify his message or dumb-down his wording for some hypothetical "reader of average intelligence". He expects that his readers are smart, educated, and quite justified in feeling cut out of the political game as we've seen it. Of course he rips into the crimes against open debate and access to information by the Bush administration. But he does this against the backdrop of all American history, and draws heavily on other leaders from the past such as Teddy Roosevelt from 1906:

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

Sometimes Gore seems to wish for the moral thunder of America's founders: "How long would it take James Madison to dispose of our current president's claim, in Department of Justice legal opinions, that he is largely above the rule of law so long as he is acting in his role as commander-in-chief?"

And sometimes Gore plays the card of religion as he understands it:

"Dominance is as dominance does. Dominance is not really a strategic policy or a political philosophy at all. Rather, it is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for still more power by striking a bargain with their consciences. And as always happens sooner or later to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their own soul."

Okay, so he could use some more humor. But through it all Gore stays optimistic that the tide is turning in favor of interactive media and renewed popular debate. He sees it in the multiplication on web-based movements, the power of blogging, or experiments with two-way television systems: "We can see it happening before our eyes: As a society, we are getting smarter. Networked democracy is taking hold. You can feel it."

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3.0 out of 5 stars Such a shame.
For me, this book turned out to be a polemic against President George W. Bush. And while I took no issue with what Mr. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Schmadrian

4.0 out of 5 stars Stemming the erosive tide
Erosion is a subtle force. Quiet and persistent, the force wears away an object until it fades away or suffers catastrophic collapse. Read more

Published on Dec 29 2007 by Stephen A. Haines

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone Should Read This
Even though this book covers only the tip of the iceberg on many issues, many people in this world do not know of these things. Read more

Published on Aug 20 2007 by K. Heiss

4.0 out of 5 stars Assault On Reason
I'm not going to get into the book as much as many others have with their reviews, but I hope it will be useful to someone that may be interested in buying this book. Read more

Published on Jun 22 2007 by G. Scarcella

5.0 out of 5 stars Gore should have delayed the book!!!
During one of the 2000 Presidential debates, Al Gore and President Bush were asked to explain their plans for the overwhelming budget surplus they were about to inherit from the... Read more

Published on Jun 17 2007 by Sivakumar Nadarajah

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