Blogging the Book - Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason" Pt. I

Oh, Al, you disappoint me so! Having read the first half of "The Assault on Reason" and your concerns about media ownership being consolidated and how the marketplace of ideas has suffered accordingly, paired with your deliciously detailed, yet unfortunately unfoot-noted, accounting of the sins of the Bush Administration. Yet, conveniently, you skip how the Clinton Administration, for which you served as Vice President, passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, allowing for that very same consolidation of media ownership you now say is such a bad idea. In fact, you have said very little (so far) about any Democratic flaws or faults.

On the other hand, Mr. Gore, you've got a lot to say about how the marketplace of ideas is suffering because of the one-sided, high gloss, high spin approach to discourse, and I see already where you are going. Television is, for now, the medium of politics. It is not interactive, it's easily manipulated, and it's very expensive. The internet, on the other hand, is very interactive, much more accessible, and, like the printing press, is based on literacy not pretty pictures. I see you already building the case for a hi-tech restoration of the democracy on which this country was founded. However, I look forward to reading how you think it can be any less manipulated than television.

For the rest of us, of course, the question remains "Will Al Gore Run?" and is there anything in "The Assault on Reason" that can be read like teas leaves to answer that question. Sorry, all you Draft Gore guys and gals. One hundred and forty-five pages in and this does not sound like a man running for president. It does read, however, like a man who is trying from the outside to shape the dialogue of the 2008 campaign. It does read like a man very much connected to the process of presidential elections. If he weren't so soft on the Dems, one could imagine Mr. Gore talking third parties (I'm only half-way through, he might yet). There is, out there in cyberland, already the Unity '08 group, with it's proposal to have an internet-based convention. Their gimmick, whoever is selected as their nominee must agree to a running-mate from an opposing party. Hmmm.....Gore/Bloomberg '08?

To be continued...