Letters
Picks and pans

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Former Vice President Al Gore has written a book called The Assault on Reason. Alan Ehrenhalt's review (Book World, May 27) helps to advance Gore's thesis that in the United States objective truth often ranks second to subjective caricatures of public figures, ad hominem attacks and massive floods of disinformation.

Ehrenhalt admits that " The Assault on Reason is, like much of what Gore has said over the years, essentially truthful." The reader finds this important assertion about two-thirds of the way through the review. It is almost an afterthought. Equally, if not more important, to Ehrenhalt, are subjective, personal (and shopworn) criticisms of Gore as "smug and self-centered," "desperate to display his erudition" and a pedant.

If we accept Ehrenhalt's approach, we will continue to look more at packaging than substance. We will carefully consider whether one presidential candidate is someone we might enjoy having a beer with. We will dismiss as bores intelligent leaders who try to push their message through a thicket of propaganda and distractions about personal tics (real or imagined). After all, the only things men like Gore have to offer us are truth and intelligent thought. What does that matter when the messenger has the gall to quote learned thinkers or, even worse, to be annoying?

CHRIS EDELSON

Washington, D.C.

In response to Michael Dirda's review of Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family, by Alexander Waugh (Book World, May 27):

Auberon was not well-liked

And Alec often gave pause.

But Evelyn was, without a doubt,

The Waugh to end all Waughs.

MARIAN CARLSSON

Lexington, Va.

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