And there's an introduction (unusual, I think?) an Amazon interaction--anonymously==why?--with author; there're also some decent comment posts:

The Assault on Reason His intro to the combined-Intro:

I've dedicated my book, The Assault on Reason, to my father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., the bravest politician I've ever known. In the 1970 mid-term elections, President Richard Nixon relied on a campaign of fear to consolidate his power. I was in the military at the time, on my way to Vietnam as an army journalist, and I watched as my father was accused of being unpatriotic because he was steadfast in his opposition to the War--and as he was labeled an atheist because he dared to oppose a constitutional amendment to foster government-sponsored prayer in the public schools. The 1970 campaign is now regarded by political historians as a watershed, marking a sharp decline in the tone of our national discourse--a decline that has only worsened in recent years as fear has become a more powerful political tool than trust, public consumption of entertainment has dramatically surpassed that of serious news, and blind faith has proven more potent than truth.

We are at a pivotal moment in American democracy. The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, has reached levels that were previously unimaginable. It's too easy and too partisan to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes.

Reasoned, focused discourse is vital to our democracy to ensure a well-informed citizenry. But this is difficult in an environment in which we are experiencing a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time--from the O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson trials to Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith.

[. . .]

^Emphasis^ hardly needed, but it's just-So-fucking AL PUNTE innit?
Shirley we all recall too, how the faux-meme "I Invented the Internet" was the ridicule-of-choice of the uninformed automatic-responses (also too..) to An Inconvenient Truth cha. cha. cha.


8.34 minutes will likely capture the flavor of this prescient book of TEN years ago, I wot.
I see that there's a .pdf of Chapter 1, The Politics of Fear at this German site.
Bon appetít.

---

Invite in a Brown Shirt: for lunch, y'Hear?