Time to Pay Attention May 23, 2007March 6, 2017 The Assault On Reason. Even the reviews give you goose bumps: May 22, 2007 The Gore Book: Sweeping Indictment, Rousing Challenge, Massive Best-seller By Brent Budowsky The real presidential campaign begins now with the publication of Al Gore’s sweeping, passionate and uncompromising indictment of Bush, Bushism and American politics in the Bush era. This book will be a massive and gigantic best-seller as Americans vote with their book-buying bucks. This book will have dramatic impact on the presidential campaign by setting the gold standard for what a Loyal Opposition should stand for. If Congress again capitulates to Bush on Iraq policy, the juxtaposition of Gore’s massive assault on Bushism, his criticism of Congress for not presenting authoritative opposition and current events in Washington will unleash a major groundswell in many circles of Democratic and independent politics. This is not a book about politics. It is a book about American democracy in 2007. Gore challenges the surrender of major media to false notions, unreason, misunderstanding and dishonesty that drove America to disastrous war. Gore challenges the onslaught against the Bill of Rights and fundamental freedoms by an administration seeking to monopolize its power in ways reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984. Gore attacks a war that was not just wrong, but in his word ‘absurd,’ an Orwellian preemptive war attacking a country that did not invade us, in response to a terrorist attack that could have been prevented. Gore condemns the exploitation and abuse of 9/11 and the abuse of power, and abuse of trust, of a politics aimed at driving the nation into a frenzy of fear to justify unwise war, un-American torture and illegal actions beyond the reach of Congress and the courts. Gore issues a clarion call for America to rejoin the global community and lead the fight against global warming, AIDS, the crisis of water and a range of global issues that threaten a world that hungers for renewed American leadership. What is striking and powerful about Gore’s book is the sweeping and comprehensive indictment of Bush and the Bush years, and the passion, reason and intensity of his challenge. The pundits will smirk and ask whether Gore’s weight means he is running. The insiders will guffaw and ask whether Gore is still too boring. The analysts with nothing better to say than trite remarks will ask how this will affect Hillary or Barack. All of this makes and empowers Gore’s very point . . . Gore is saying that these are deadly serious times that demand highly serious leaders and that our democracy, too long put to shame by shallowness and deceit, must be reawakened by a people who say, ‘No more.’ Maybe Gore will run, maybe Gore will not, but this book will begin a far greater and deeper debate. The power, strength and sweep of this book are words from a man who should have been president, might well still be president, and provide a call to action for the next man or woman who will be president. ☞ I am enthusiastically neutral among all our fine Democratic candidates (even our drop-outs were great: Russ Feingold, Mark Warner, Tom Vilsack). And I note that, to a man (and a woman), ours all believe in evolution.