The Assault on Reason is a 2007 book by Al Gore. In the book, the former U.S. Vice President heavily criticizes the George W. Bush administration for its actions in furthering the "assault on reason". He argues that there is a trend in U.S. politics toward ignoring facts and analysis when making policy decisions, calling the Congress, the judiciary, and the press complicit in the process. Gore's prescription is that the average citizen must be proactive in "restoring democracy". He expresses hopes that the medium of the Internet will supersede television and what he argues is its inherent bias, creating a "marketplace of ideas" that has not been present since the replacement of the printed word with mass media.
The book ranked number one on the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction during the first four weeks of its release, and was on the top-35 list for fifteen weeks.[1] Actor Will Patton narrates the audio version.[2]
Accusations Against the "Big Three"
In The Assault on Reason, Gore claimed that between 2002 and 2004, 97% of the attendees at Liberty Fund training seminars for judges were Republican administration appointees. Gore alleged that these conferences and seminars are one of the reasons that judges who regularly attend such conferences "are generally responsible for writing the most radical pro-corporate, anti-environmental, and activist decisions". Regarding what he names the "Big Three"—the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, George Mason University's Law & Economics Center, and the Liberty Fund—Gore adds his accusations: "These groups are not providing unbiased judicial education. They are giving multithousand-dollar vacations to federal judges to promote their radical right-wing agenda at the expense of the public interest."[3]
Gore based his claims and related accusations on reports made by the Community Rights Counsel which made two reports, one in 2000 and one in 2004.[4] Gore published The Assault on Reason in 2007. In spite of the years in between, in his 2007 book Gore failed to mention and interact with any counterargument to the CRC's criticism of the "Big Three". For example, in his 2007 book Gore failed to interact with the 2005 criticism made by Prof. Jonathan H. Adler towards the CRC's attacks on the "Big Three". Adler argues for the biased nature of the CRC, and he lists some bipartisan attendees and endorsees of the seminars and conferences that Gore condemns. Adler comments: "Of course, it’s not just any privately funded seminars that attract CRC’s ire: They’ve been remarkably silent about other seminars sponsored by universities or organizations like the Aspen Institute and the Ford Foundation, leading some to suspect that CRC’s real objection is to exposing judges to views with which CRC disagrees."[5]
Moreover, Gore's 2007 book failed to mention and interact with what Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic SciencesThomas Schelling said in 2005 in response to the CRC executive director, Douglas T. Kendall. Schelling distinguishes the question of judicial conduct from the question of judgment about the organizations: "Whether judges should accept travel, room, and board to attend twenty-one hours of serious discussion over four days is for the Committee on Codes of Conduct to decide." Then, regarding FREE [Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment], Schelling says: "I have participated in 168 hours of lectures and discussion at FREE and have never witnessed anything that an observer could interpret as remotely corresponding to that characterization."[6]
Even though The Assault on Reason was republished in a new edition in 2017, the new edition contains no emendation to any of its flaws reported above.[7]
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