Modulous writes:
quote:
No - that's what he did. What he said was:
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During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
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Obviously he said a lot more than that ....
But you're neglecting the context. What was the question that he was asked? The quote, taken completely out of context and with the attitude being spun by the conservatives makes it seem as if Gore were trying to imply that he was spending all-nighters coding the TCP/IP stack while subsisting on nothing more than Hot Pockets and Mt. Dew.
But instead, that wasn't what the context was. Instead, he was in an interview with Wolf Blitzer who had asked him about his accomplishments in the Senate and Gore gave a response that only makes sense when taken in the context of his work as a Senator.
Wolf's question:
Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley?
Gore's answer:
I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be. But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
Only a fool would interpret this to mean that Gore was trying to claim intellectual credit. And, in fact, nobody bothered to think what he said was unusual until
DAYS later when a Republican press release specifically and deliberately misquoted him.
The High Performance Computing and Communication Act, the act that provided the funding to develop the nascent ARPAnet used by the Department of Defense into the Internet we have today, is commonly referred to as the "Gore Act." The reason you have a web browser at all is because of the Gore Act for it was the source of funding to create the Mosaic browser.
Now, Vint Cert and Bob Kahn, the people who actually did write the TCP/IP stack, don't seem to think Gore was taking credit for their work and wrote an open letter soundly criticizing those who would imply otherwise.
Other things Gore is reputed to have said but didn't:
That he was the inspiration for
Love Story.
That he discovered Love Canal.
That he was the one that brought up Willie Horton.
Rrhain
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Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
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