Reply #2: Don't miss Dana Milbank's profound insights about Al Gore... [View All]

“Imagine the Iowa hog farmer cracking open Assault on Reason, and meeting Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, John Kenneth Galbraith, Walter Lippmann, Johannes Gutenberg, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Jefferson and Marshall McLuhan – all before finishing the introduction,” (Dana) Milbank wrote.

“Reading Gore’s book, or listening to his speeches, may remind some supporters what they liked least about him the first time he ran, in 2000. Gore is usually smart and sometimes prophetic – but, all too frequently, pedantic,” Milbank wrote.


Robert Parry goes on to comment:

Of course, The Assault on Reason might not remind Gore supporters of any such thing. Indeed, many Americans might be in the mood for a leader who actually knows stuff after six-plus years of listening to Bush speak in his trademark ill-informed didactic prose – and watching, in horror, the consequences.

But Milbank, like many Washington insiders, sees average Americans as stupid know-nothings who would be offended by know-it-all Gore.

In that line, Milbank reflected the elitist disdain toward the “Iowa hog farmer” and other common folk. But who knows? Maybe the great unwashed masses are smart enough to find Gore’s commentaries not only reasonable and engaging but respectful of their own intellects, that Gore is speaking up to them, not down to them.

The key point in Parry's article: "It turns out that the written word can be as irrational as the content of any TV show."

Robert Parry - "Gore attacks media complicity. Media proves him right - again."