We live in an age when the thirty-second television spot is the most powerful force shaping the electorate's thinking, and America is in the hands of an administration less interested than any previous administration in sharing the truth with the citizenry. Related to this and of even greater concern is this administration's disinterest in the process by which the truth is ascertained, the tenets of fact-based reasoning-first among them an embrace of open inquiry in which unexpected and even inconvenient facts can lead to unexpected conclusions.

How did we get here? How much damage has been done to the functioning of our democracy and its role as steward of our security? Never has there been a worse time for us to lose the capacity to face the reality of our long-term challenges, from national security to the economy, from issues of health and social welfare to the environment. As The Assault on Reason shows us, we have precious little time to waste.

Gore's larger goal in this book is to explain how the public sphere itself has evolved into a place hospitable to reason's enemies, to make us more aware of the forces at work on our own minds, and to lead us to an understanding of what we can do, individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason and safeguard our future. Drawing on a life's work in politics as well as on the work of experts across a broad range of disciplines, Al Gore has written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for clear thinking.

These were among some of the best kept secrets in government -- business as usual inside an engorged, entrenched bureaucracy. Less secret was the fact that this bureaucracy was churning out hundreds of thousands of pages of jargon-laden directives and petty regulations that contributed to the federal bloat and a tradition of official obfuscation. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have changed all that. In this highly readable report, the fourth in a series by the National Performance Review, the Vice President reveals some new government secrets, chief of which is that government is now costing less and working better. In a revolution of common sense, federal employees themselves worked with the Clinton Administration to downsize and streamline their own jobs. The Best Kept Secrets in Government tells the stories of a number of the dedicated and innovative civil servants who were finally given the opportunity to throw off the burdens of micromanagement and implement commonsense plans of their own devising. The results have been dramatic, resulting in the largest, swiftest government-wide cut in the history of the United States -- while maintaining and improving essential services. In The Best Kept Secrets in Government, Vice President Gore tells how this revolution came to pass, and how it can be extended into the future. "It isn't good enough yet, or small enough yet, but we sure have things headed in the right direction," the Vice President writes in his introduction. "We are rebuilding a government that all Americans can be proud of."