Al Gore, the former U.S. vice-president who has devoted the last few years to protecting the environment, has turned his attention to saving the American political system.

Gore released a new book on Tuesday, The Assault on Reason, which describes U.S. politics as a rigged game that suppresses honesty and rewards deception.

Al Gore listens during a Tribeca Film Festival news conference in New York on April 25.
(Richard Drew/Associated Press)

Gore dismissed suggestions that the book, which is highly critical of the administration of President George W. Bush, is a preparation for another run at the presidency.

"I'm not a candidate and this is not a political book, this is not a candidate book," Gore said in an interview with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America.

"It's about that there are cracks in the foundation of American democracy that have to be fixed."

In The Assault on Reason, Gore looks at public attitudes, including the dismissal of climate change, the still-widespread belief that there was a link between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq and acceptance of human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

He is sharply critical of the media for being controlled by a few powerful interests, of television for covering trivial excess and of politicians for alienating the public.

"It is too easy and too partisan to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush," Gore writes in The Assault on Reason.

"We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Why have they all failed us?"

Despite claiming not to blame Bush, Gore is intensely critical of the current U.S. president's climate policies and his response to the 9/11 attacks.

The Bush White House "has engaged in an unprecedented and sustained campaign of mass deception — especially where its policies in Iraq are concerned," he writes.

Gore said the thrust of the book is to explain "why logic and reason and the best evidence available and the scientific discoveries do not have more force in changing the way we all think."

American democracy "is in danger of being hollowed out," he said in an interview with Time. He also calls on Americans to become more engaged in public discourse.

Gore, who lost his bid for the presidency in 2000, has been touring the world with his lecture series and Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He also backs an organization that battles climate change and is sponsoring the Live Earth music concerts in July.

He is expected to tour North America in support of The Assault on Reason.