[Baron Munchausen]

Let's get our own facts straight before we accuse people of lying, ok?

Al Gore did not claim to have invented the Internet.

Fact.

From March 1999 CNN Interview:

BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.
Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

GORE: Well, I will be offering - 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.

During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead.

All he is saying, though unfortunately phrased in a way that sound-bite artists could twist it as they inevitably did, is that he was involved in the legislation that enabled and expanded the commercial Internet. Which is true. But once the media-machine gets hold of some cutely distorted idea they repeat it until no one remembers the truth anymore.

What is it about human conversations that they can never stay on a focus? We've got the SE V thread yammering about lawsuits and a stupid legal system while this thread has drifted from Iraq to US world relations and internal politics to... wait for it... the originality of the SE series and comparisons to Al Gore's 'creativity' or lack thereof over something he didn't say. Hmm.

[ May 30, 2003, 15:43: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]