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Has a title of a book ever made you giggle more then the Goracle’s Assualt on Reason? The nutty professor has spent eight years since the Florida chad-fest trying to shut down reason’s engine – debate – as he has proclaimed to us school children: “The debate is over on global warming.” Gee, thanks your bloatness, but some us out here with pea-size minds still haven’t had that piece of the sky fall on our heads yet, so be patient with us while we debate it.

I haven’t read his book, nor will I likely do so, but I am sympathetic to his cause, the swamping of the public sphere with celebrity trivialities. But it’s difficult to take Gore seriously since his condescending stance on global warming and the nut-cases who swell his ranks aren’t interested in any sort of reasoned debate.

Here’s the Goracle’s special message to readers about his new book:

I’ve dedicated my book, The Assault on Reason, to my father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., the bravest politician I’ve ever known….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.

As brave politicians go, Al Gore Sr. certainly is on the top of my list in opposing the Vietnam war AND school prayer. Wow! Teddy Roosevelt (the original conservationist) was shot by an anarchist just before giving a speech, and with the bullet lodged in his lung still went on the stump. Now that’s a brave politician. The Goracle continues:

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.

Try getting through 320 pages of this. The irony is, it is the Left’s language which has stifled debate and reason, not the “reliance on falsehoods,” which in itself is falsehood. Repeating like a drum “Bush lied and people died” isn’t exactly reasoned debate and, more importantly, is itself a complete lie. Making a misjudgment is not a lie.

But these phrases are very potent and can move the general opinion over time. If it’s not slogans like these that speak for the Left, it’s the weary and content-devoid language of the Clintons, Obama, Edwards, and Gore. Orwell aptly discusses such a de-coupling of language from meaning in Politics and the English Language.

He writes:

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

Hillary’s latest socialist screed serves as an example:

I prefer a ‘we’re all in it together’ society,” she said. “I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none.

That’s all well and good Hillary, but what in the heck does that mean to have government work for all Americans? I have no clue, but I know what she means to say: “I am going to raise corporate, dividend, and capital gains taxes and use that money to create a public health care system.” I would welcome this kind of language, and it’s why a candidate such as Ralph Nader appeals to me more than these zombies.

But for the Left, if your speech is not as ornate a Bach fugue, you’re either not trying or just plain stupid. That’s why Bush is constantly being referred to as a chimpanzee. But for clarity and purpose, he had no finer moment than when he said he would get Bin Laden “Dead or Alive.” This is the kind of talk a nation needs when three thousand of its citizens have been evaporated. It’s the kind of talk the nation still needs when engaged in the field with the same despicable sort.

Perhaps Gore’s frustration with the flinting attention of the American public to macro issues and obsession over celebrity minutia is justified; it is a disturbing feature of 21st century America. But the insistent slogans of the Left born out of universities’ mindless prattle in no way enriches the debate. If Gore wants reason to be the primary broker in politics, he, too, has to succumb to its edge and engage in debate. This doesn’t mean doing lecture tours at Cal Berkley or cuddling up with Larry King on CNN for an hour. It means taking his theories and ideas to Fox news, to conservative talk radio, or to anybody outside Hollywood and the University to engage in honest discourse. But this will not happen, because as we know the debate is closed on global warming.