Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #755199 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Documenting the Birth and Dangers of the American Age of Passively Accepting Authority
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.

What would Gore have done?
Al Gore gives a penetrating, though at times repetitive analysis of what has gone wrong with American government. By declaring perpetual war, George W Bush claims to be exempt from the normal checks and balances between executive, legislature and judiciary. Reliant on 30-second TV slots for political information, a passive public has failed to object.

Running through the book is a message: 'It would have been different with me.' This is a risky claim to make, for who can be sure of resisting the corrupting influence of power? On page 186, Gore makes a troubling statement: 'Back in 1991, I was one of a handful of Senate Democrats to vote in favour of the resolution endorsing the Persian Gulf War. I felt betrayed by the first Bush administration's hasty departure from the battlefield even as Saddam began to renew his persecution of the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south - groups that we had encouraged to rise up against Saddam. After a brilliant military campaign, our decision to abandon prematurely the effort to destroy Saddam's military capability allowed him to remain in power.' In other words, if Gore had been in power in 1991, the destruction of Iraq might have begun 12 years earlier than it did.

The Clinton-Gore Administration spent 8 years bombing targets in Iraq and enforcing sanctions which, according to UNICEF, caused the death of half a million Iraqi children. At the same time, they kept up massive financial aid and arms supplies to Israel while it continued to build illegal settlements on occupied territory, making the creation of a viable Palestinian state virtually impossible. Gore would not have invaded Iraq in 2003, but might he not have sent troops into Pakistan in pursuit of Bin Laden? At all events, America's posture in the Middle East might not have been much more comfortable, nor the attendant dangers much less, than they are now.

Intelligent, challenging and convincing
Gore argues that democracy is being spoiled by dumbed down news media and the concentration of power in the hands of a small number of insiders, who are keen to keep the masses dumb and misled. Gore compares this state of affairs with the previous centuries, where American public debate was noted for its intelligence and reasoned thought. He laments that now, sound bites and pandering to fears and prejudices are under cutting this, and "short circuiting" this.

Gore believes that the advent of radio and TV destroyed democratic debate. Prior to then, books were the primary medium, which required intelligence to read and also required citizens to seek information rather than simply receive it. TV and radio concentrated the power to spread information and messages in a small number of hands, namely, the TV and radio barons who snapped up a monopoly when the technology was in its infancy. As a result, Americans went from being information seekers, to passive information receivers, being fed droning, dumbed down coverage. Gore also feels that the few active citizens who were not dumbed down could not compete with the multi-million dollar budgets or expensive technology needed to challenge this lamentable state of affairs.

However, Gore feels that the internet has changed this, as it is cheap, and allows individual citizens to spread information. Crucially, it also allows for two-way communication and debate, and allows citizens to both receive and seek information. Gore is optimistic that this will lead to a revival of intelligent debate in political debate.

All in all, the book is a very good read, although Gore is perhaps slightly over optimistic about the power of the internet, and even concedes that it too could find itself coming under the control of wealthy media magnates. This book is an excellent companion to "The Political Brain" by Drew Westen, as Gore argues reason and intelligence should matter in politics, whilst Westen argues that gut feelings and emotions play a more important role. It would be useful for the reader to compare the two and draw their own conclusion.