Tuesday, June 05, 2007

The New Assault on Al Gore

By Robert Parry
June 5, 2007

An irony about Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, is that the former Vice President blames TV much more than the print media for America’s drift into the world of the irrational.

Yet, while author Gore has encountered mostly respectful interviews on TV, his book has been savaged by major newspapers and print reviewers, often distorting the contents and resurrecting one of the favorite press themes of Campaign 2000, that Gore is an obnoxious pedant.

Read on.
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2 comments:

Unknown said...

The defense of Al Gore is apt and we perhaps need not agonize over whether some in the print media have been hard on Gore and soft on Bush as a shield against acknowledging even to themselves their lock-step reporting with the Administration until its Emperor's nakedness became impossible to ignore.

The throttling of David Brooks was a bit startling but gives rise to the seemingly underreported story of just what kool aid some of the print meisters were drinking in the days when Bush's habitual stumbles were reported as walking on water.

However, Gore's personal eccentricities are not usefully ignored when it comes to considering the potential of his running again. His sense of the same was disclosed in his recent interviews when he acknowledged that he was not very good at running for the presidency... even if he did win.

Arguably, the race would not have been close enough to steal but for a certain style that could be, if harshly, portrayed as pompous pedantry.

It's probably true that the reportorial swells softened up Gore so as to ease the public's penchant to selectively scorn those who are a tad pretentious, even if seriously prescient.

So, yes the media deserves this excoriating exposure but Gore's owning of his own weaknesses, coy or not, should not be ignored.

George Collins, Goffstown, NH

Tue Jun 05, 10:55:00 AM 2007
Unknown said...

I think you are just publicizing all the negative comments of those reporters and newspapers who have criticized Al Gore and misstated his comments. Do us a favor and reprint the positive observations of Mr. Gore's writings and views. Otherwise, you're just reinforcing the Rove/Cheney directed propoganda.

Sun Jun 10, 06:06:00 PM 2007

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