Readers who are not teletubers should find nothing new or wildly controversial in any of that, either. Americans who haven't spent the last fifty years in a persistent vegetative state have seen all of those evils at play in our national affairs. And honest readers (be they sane) must also agree with chapters 6 through 8, where Gore recounts ways in which our leaders (primarily George Bush and his GOP), using television as described in chapters 1 through 5, have damaged our republic and our democracy. And that's the last of my good news about The Assault on Reason.
The first problem I noticed with Assault is that it suffers for a lack of candor. On page 1, for example, Gore writes: "The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable." That's true enough, but it overlooks the fact that, had American leadership always deemed falsehoods unacceptable as a basis for policy, the "reliance" Gore laments would never have been formed.
I also feel compelled to say that, as a reader, I'm willing to credit Gore with being a sane person and with owning a reasonably good memory. But if I do so then I'm stuck with the fact that he is lying to me: For if Gore is sane and has a good memory, then he obviously hopes readers have forgotten the things he said, the "facts" he employed, the rosy predictions he made - "even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary" - when, in 1993, he and President Bill Clinton rammed the North American Free-Trade Agreement down America's throat.
Gore commits the same crime on page 24, where he justly condemns the use of fear as a tool in American politics. And though on page 42, he writes that "the use of fear as a political tool is not new," he somehow forgets to mention that he and his allies exploited fear without scruple when, in 1993, they gang-stomped Ross Perot's opposition in their rush to get NAFTA ratified.
Gore fudges again on page 81, charging that the Bush administration, in its 2003 rape of Medicare, used bribes and intimidation to extort "yes" votes from congressional representatives. I know he's right. I also know that in the heat of the NAFTA haggle, the Clinton-Gore lobby twisted congressional arms and spent like drunken swabs in garnering votes to achieve their own corrupt ends. But Gore doesn't confess to that.
Of course the Democratic Party was in bygone times the leviathan of American politics. Gore lives deep inside that ancient, foetid whale and there, in his dank, dark, "visceral prison," may not see well enough to find his own backside. So it may be an ideologically induced purblindness and not a pathological dishonesty that causes Gore to make such oversights. But the oversights are there nonetheless, and their presence doesn't flatter the author - even if they don't all polish his own apple.
In his Introduction, Gore polishes journalism's apple. There he tells us that at the time of the O.J. trial, he thought " . . . exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the trial was just an unfortunate excess - an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time." (Assault, p. 3)
"Normal good sense and judgment of our television news media?" "An early example of a new pattern?" Oh, puh-LEEZE, Mr. Gore! People have complained, scholars and even journalists themselves have written about the imbecility of television news for decades. TV news may be exponentially worse now than it was in years past, but, being nearly 59 years old myself, I don't recall that TV news was ever such a much.
Gore shines up to journalism again on page 17, where he states flatly that "this generation of journalists is the best-trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are often not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do."
How's about that one, historians? If Al Gore hadn't told us so, we might never have known that Judith Miller is a better journalist than Ida Tarbell, that Sean Hannity is better than Ed Murrow, or that Cal Thomas is better than H.L. Mencken.
But perhaps Gore didn't mean it that way. What seems base flattery of the sociopathic careerists who presently characterize coverage of our national news may be nothing more than an attempt to except or insulate news-media grunts from criticism, which Gore in the next few chapters fires at news media themselves and at monied interests that control the media. If such an exception was his intent, he should have written it plainly rather than couch it in an outrageous statement that raises doubts about his knowledge, his motives, his vision, his judgment and his courage. As it is, one finds good reason to question all those things in this hypnotized turkey of a book.
Regarding the War on Drugs: Gore passes up several opportunities to denounce the drug war or to call for an end of it. Instead, he writes that " . . . the global challenge of defeating drugs and corruption . . . has never been more serious given the growing strength and sophistication of international crime organizations." (p. 163)
Regarding the War on Terror: Gore writes that "Our top priority should be preserving what America represents . . . and winning the war against terrorism first." (p. 177)
Nowhere in Assault does Gore question either the drug war or the terror war as policy. Instead, Gore asserts repeatedly (explicitly or implicitly) that Bush is screwing up those wars and that Gore (or another Democrat) could run them more effectively. Thus there's nothing new here, nothing bold or innovative, just more of the same old, boringly familiar, carefully triangulated, entirely illiberal and ineffective, Clintonesque, GOP-Light, New-Democrat donkey crap. There may be some difference between positions staked out by Gore in 2007 and those taken by John Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000, but I don't believe the difference would buy my landlady a used T-shirt at the Salvation Army.
Coming from an influential Democrat, Gore's argument against television at first seems to hold a great deal of promise. But that argument and the hope it engenders soon get lost, buried beneath tons of rage against the Bush régime. Between pages 102 and 238 (fully half of the text), the word "television" gets no mention whereas Bush and his GOP get their asses beat on virtually every page. When in Chapter 9 Gore finally returns to his prosecution of television, he does so only to offer an uproariously stupid and utterly self-serving solution, which he claims to believe will break the grip that commercial television and its army of brilliantly talented, professional liars now hold on the mind of America. I won't tell here what Gore's proposed solution is because - even if you're dumb enough to buy The Assault on Reason after reading this review - you still deserve one good laugh for your money.
At the beginning of The Assault, Gore serves up a caveat: "It is too easy - and too partisan - to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes." (p. 2) That's plain enough, and it's absolutely right. Yet I think it is insufficient because that caveat, like Gore's indictment of television, gets lost in the tenor and intensity of the Bush bashing that takes over in subsequent chapters. And while Gore frequently dips into history to add depth and weight to his arguments, his dipping too often works either to puff himself up or to beat Bush down.
The first problem I noticed with Assault is that it suffers for a lack of candor. On page 1, for example, Gore writes: "The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable." That's true enough, but it overlooks the fact that, had American leadership always deemed falsehoods unacceptable as a basis for policy, the "reliance" Gore laments would never have been formed.
I also feel compelled to say that, as a reader, I'm willing to credit Gore with being a sane person and with owning a reasonably good memory. But if I do so then I'm stuck with the fact that he is lying to me: For if Gore is sane and has a good memory, then he obviously hopes readers have forgotten the things he said, the "facts" he employed, the rosy predictions he made - "even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary" - when, in 1993, he and President Bill Clinton rammed the North American Free-Trade Agreement down America's throat.
Gore commits the same crime on page 24, where he justly condemns the use of fear as a tool in American politics. And though on page 42, he writes that "the use of fear as a political tool is not new," he somehow forgets to mention that he and his allies exploited fear without scruple when, in 1993, they gang-stomped Ross Perot's opposition in their rush to get NAFTA ratified.
Of course the Democratic Party was in bygone times the leviathan of American politics. Gore lives deep inside that ancient, foetid whale and there, in his dank, dark, "visceral prison," may not see well enough to find his own backside. So it may be an ideologically induced purblindness and not a pathological dishonesty that causes Gore to make such oversights. But the oversights are there nonetheless, and their presence doesn't flatter the author - even if they don't all polish his own apple.
In his Introduction, Gore polishes journalism's apple. There he tells us that at the time of the O.J. trial, he thought " . . . exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the trial was just an unfortunate excess - an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time." (Assault, p. 3)
"Normal good sense and judgment of our television news media?" "An early example of a new pattern?" Oh, puh-LEEZE, Mr. Gore! People have complained, scholars and even journalists themselves have written about the imbecility of television news for decades. TV news may be exponentially worse now than it was in years past, but, being nearly 59 years old myself, I don't recall that TV news was ever such a much.
Gore shines up to journalism again on page 17, where he states flatly that "this generation of journalists is the best-trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are often not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do."
How's about that one, historians? If Al Gore hadn't told us so, we might never have known that Judith Miller is a better journalist than Ida Tarbell, that Sean Hannity is better than Ed Murrow, or that Cal Thomas is better than H.L. Mencken.
But perhaps Gore didn't mean it that way. What seems base flattery of the sociopathic careerists who presently characterize coverage of our national news may be nothing more than an attempt to except or insulate news-media grunts from criticism, which Gore in the next few chapters fires at news media themselves and at monied interests that control the media. If such an exception was his intent, he should have written it plainly rather than couch it in an outrageous statement that raises doubts about his knowledge, his motives, his vision, his judgment and his courage. As it is, one finds good reason to question all those things in this hypnotized turkey of a book.
Regarding the War on Drugs: Gore passes up several opportunities to denounce the drug war or to call for an end of it. Instead, he writes that " . . . the global challenge of defeating drugs and corruption . . . has never been more serious given the growing strength and sophistication of international crime organizations." (p. 163)
Regarding the War on Terror: Gore writes that "Our top priority should be preserving what America represents . . . and winning the war against terrorism first." (p. 177)
Nowhere in Assault does Gore question either the drug war or the terror war as policy. Instead, Gore asserts repeatedly (explicitly or implicitly) that Bush is screwing up those wars and that Gore (or another Democrat) could run them more effectively. Thus there's nothing new here, nothing bold or innovative, just more of the same old, boringly familiar, carefully triangulated, entirely illiberal and ineffective, Clintonesque, GOP-Light, New-Democrat donkey crap. There may be some difference between positions staked out by Gore in 2007 and those taken by John Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000, but I don't believe the difference would buy my landlady a used T-shirt at the Salvation Army.
Coming from an influential Democrat, Gore's argument against television at first seems to hold a great deal of promise. But that argument and the hope it engenders soon get lost, buried beneath tons of rage against the Bush régime. Between pages 102 and 238 (fully half of the text), the word "television" gets no mention whereas Bush and his GOP get their asses beat on virtually every page. When in Chapter 9 Gore finally returns to his prosecution of television, he does so only to offer an uproariously stupid and utterly self-serving solution, which he claims to believe will break the grip that commercial television and its army of brilliantly talented, professional liars now hold on the mind of America. I won't tell here what Gore's proposed solution is because - even if you're dumb enough to buy The Assault on Reason after reading this review - you still deserve one good laugh for your money.
At the beginning of The Assault, Gore serves up a caveat: "It is too easy - and too partisan - to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes." (p. 2) That's plain enough, and it's absolutely right. Yet I think it is insufficient because that caveat, like Gore's indictment of television, gets lost in the tenor and intensity of the Bush bashing that takes over in subsequent chapters. And while Gore frequently dips into history to add depth and weight to his arguments, his dipping too often works either to puff himself up or to beat Bush down.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
