An indictment of the Bush Administration from the first page to the last, by a man who is eminently qualified, more qualified than anyone in the country, the man who should have been president.

You can open up this book anywhere and start reading, and you will immediately be drawn in. You will be amazed about the glaring transgressions of the administration, including invasion of our personal space, rape of our civil liberties, and a planned and methodical attack on our intelligence and critical thinking.

Gore exposes the Bush politics of fear, by which he draws vivid pictures designed to scare millions of people, in order to get his agenda of power past the American people.

You might say that Gore is jealous because he lost the election in 2000. You might say that Gore is out to feather his own nest. You might even say that Gore is petty.

After reading The Assault on Reason, I do not see any of the above. Here is what I see:

Gore is a brilliant and responsible man and we would be living in an entirely different world today had he won in 2000. Even after 9/11, if it had even happened, we would have recovered in a much more healthy and positive way.

There are signs of pure and reckless neglect by the Bush Administration, who had clear and documented warnings about 9/11 months before it happened, from the CIA, the FBI and the military. The Administration ignored dire warnings and arrogant pride allowed 9/11 to happen. It could have been stopped. Would Gore have stopped it? We will never know. But we do know that Bush didn’t.

Gore is an intellectual and an eloquent writer. There is no fluff in this book. There is also no emotion. It’s just fact after fact that compels you to think and research. Tightly written, documented with facts, it reads like a story, and I learned about workings of the government that I never knew about from somebody who has been there at all levels.

After all, Gore was a member of the House for eight years, a member of the Senate for another eight years and finally vice president for eight years. Had he only won in 2000, and been president for eight years, he could have been one of this country’s most distinguished and longest serving public servants of our generation (32 years).

Alas, Gore could not carry his own state of Tennessee in 2000, and after the Florida debacle, the rest is history, pun intended.

I fault Gore for losing in 2000. It was his big blunder, and it was entirely unnecessary. He owed it to the country to win.

However, Gore has risen immensely in my esteem through this book. He is a man that I admire.