He didn't invent the Internet.

[Ravy]

He didn't say he did, either. But Al was a leader in creating what we now think of of the Internet.

It is unfortunate that a lie became so potent of a punch line.

It blurs the fact that Al Gore is largely responsible for the Internet which individuals and businesses around the world use to do buy and sell their goods, work from home, monitor their stocks, and post an occasional blurb on sites like DU.

The Internet changed business forever. The Internet changed everyone, whether they have a computer or not.

Al Gore is rightly thought of for his environmental stances. But what is *really* telling about Al Gore is that when he started speaking about issues that would affect us all, it was before they affected all of us.

Al Gore has vision.

I really like our current crop of Democratic candidates. They are extremely competent and experienced, their hearts are in the right place. Any would make a fine president, in my opinion. It isn't about dissatisfaction with my choices this election season. Normally, I would be ecstatic about the field of candidates the Democrats have to choose from.

But none of them have demonstrated Al Gore's vision. Al Gore, in my opinion, would make an exceptional president. If Al runs, I will support him. The press will play it up as dissatisfaction with our current contenders. Nothing could be further from the truth. Next year, we may have a giant among giants to proudly cast our votes for.

[ThatsMyBarack]

1. If Al runs, and gets the nom,....

....there is hope for us yet!

Restore Gore as 44! :patriot:

[Drifter]

2. What are the details of ...

the legislation that is behind this myth ?

I would love to be able to quote it, as well as the general premise of the legislation.
I was recently at a family function and someone said something about "Do YOU believe that Al Gore invented the internet ?". I quickly piped up "He didn't say that", and tried to explain the difference between what he said (and meant), and what the RW smear machine would like you to believe he said.

This information would have helped me greatly in this situation.

Cheers
Drifter

[Sparkly]

4. I just found a good link

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/#w2

[Admiral Loinpresser]

13. This link should be helpful.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

And a representative quote from it:



In the March 21 Washington Post, for example, Jason Schwartz quoted several Internet pioneers, including Vinton Cerf, the man often called “the father of the Internet.” Cerf praised Gore’s role in the Net’s development. “I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president,” he said. Meanwhile, Katie Hafner, author of a book on the Internet’s origins, penned a short piece in the New York Times, quoting experts who said that Gore “helped lift the Internet from relative obscurity and turn it into a widely accessible, commercial network.” On March 18, Gore tried to clarify his remark in an interview with USA Today. “I did take the lead in the Congress,” he told Chuck Raasch; he described his Internet work in detail. Raasch quoted Gore’s explanation—but it was mentioned in no other paper.

How well-known was Gore’s leadership role? The press corps was full of experienced scribes who knew all about his work in this area. We’ll let the Nexis archives guide us as we review this familiar old tale. According to Nexis, the Washington Post’s first reference to the Internet occurred in November 1988; a “virus” had attacked the little-known network, which connected some 50,000 computers, the Post said. But as journalists began to report on the Net, Gore’s key role in its development was clear. One month later, for example, Martin Walker wrote this in The Guardian:

WALKER (12/30/88): American computing scientists are campaigning for the creation of a “superhighway” which would revolutionise data transmission.

Legislation has already been laid before Congress by Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, calling for government funds to help establish the new network, which scientists say they can have working within five years, at a cost of Dollars 400 million.

Nine months later, the Post reported that the Bush administration “plans to unveil tomorrow an ambitious plan to spend nearly $2 billion enhancing the nation’s technological know-how, including the creation of a high-speed data ‘superhighway’ that would link more than 1,000 research sites around the country.” This network was “comparable to an interstate highway system for electronic data,” the paper said—and it noted that “a similar plan has been proposed by Sen. Albert Gore (D-Tenn.), whose legislation also proposes creating a vast electronic library that could be accessed by users seeking federally gathered information.” Simply put, Gore’s leadership role had been widely reported—and was thoroughly understood in the press. How well known was Gore’s work in this area? Five years later, the Internet was becoming well known, and the Washingtonian’s Alison Schneider looked back on its years of development:

SCHNEIDER (12/94): Internet. There’s no escaping it. It seems like only yesterday that Al Gore was preaching the merits of the I-way to a nation that still thought the Net was something used only for catching butterflies.

[Sparkly]

3. The real quote

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." That's true.

And Vincent Cerf, considered the "Father of the Internet," said of Gore: "The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator."

[Ravy]

6. In the game I am currently playing (Civilization IV) one of the

"wonders" you can "build" for your civilization is the Internet. The icon for it is a picture of Al Gore.

Coming from a computer company, I am not sure, but I would bet that it was done out of honor and not an attempt at humor.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

17. That's probably right.

A lot of geeks are aware that he won a Webbie (Internet version of Oscar) for his maajor contribution.

[Ian David]

5. Wired News's Declan McCullagh created the whole "Al Gore invented the internet" meme.

<snip>

For the record: Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet.

This claim was a deliberate misrepresentation of what Gore actually said. The lie was started by a conservative journalist and Bush partisan, and the factually-challenged wire services and entertainment media picked up on it. Wired magazine in particular was responsible for propagating the misquote and then "refuting" it with a series of counter-arguments, half of which didn't even contradict the supposed claim.

What Gore actually said was, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." And you know what? He did.

<snip>

You can accuse Gore of choosing his words poorly, and giving himself the greatest possible credit for being involved. Inserting the phrase "providing the legislative and financial support to enable" into his boast would have made it more difficult to twist his words around. But no one with a solid grasp of the English language and a little common sense could think that he was really claiming to have invented it in his spare time between floor debates and fundraisers as a Congressman.

It took malicious and incompetent journalists to fuck that up.

More:
http://godsexboyfriend.com/archives/al-gore-invented-the-internet-or-not.php



See also:

Wired Owes Al Gore an Apology

If Wired magazine considers its current laudatory cover story on Al Gore to be a sort of make-good for the role the magazine played in launching a phony press accusation against the VP in 2000 -- an accusation that took on a life of its own and helped define Gore as a so-called exaggerator -- than Wired needs to think again. Wired ought to apologize to Gore once and for all. In fact, given Gore's continued renaissance, with him being proven stone-cold right about the dangers of global warming and the insanity of invading Iraq -- two positions the MSM often mocked him for in real time -- it's likely Wired won't be the last outlet forced to issue an apology of sorts for its previously dishonest coverage of Gore. But if Wired acts fact, it could be the first.

Media and political junkies may recall Wired News played a key role in helping create the myth that Gore once awkwardly claimed to have invented the Internet. Indeed, Wired's new Gore profile can't resist revisiting the tale in its headline: "He invented the Internet (sort of)." The inventing-the-Internet charade represented a new low in MSM campaign journalism; a case in which a fabricated story came to dominate the coverage. And make no mistake, it dominated. In researching my new book on Bush and the press, I went back to the 2000 election and counted more than 4,800 television, newspaper and magazine mentions during the campaign of Gore supposedly claiming to have invented the Internet. The fact that it was not true seemed to be of little interest to a press corps often obsessed with tearing Gore down. (Gore was a fake and Bush was authentic, remember?)

The tale was first hatched by the Wired News, the "online home of Wired Magazine." On March 11 1999, Wired's Declan McCullagh posted a nasty article mocking Gore for his little-noticed comments to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Inelegant wording perhaps, but Wired treated Gore's statement as an outrageously false claim. (McCullagh later bragged, "I was the first reporter to question the vice president's improvident boast.") To give the story some oomph, Wired downplayed the real role Gore played legislatively in helping shepherd the Internet's commercial applications to life (even Newt Gingrich vouched for that), did not call the Gore campaign for additional comment or explanation, but did include a quote from conservative flak who ridiculed the VP. In fact, the GOP partisan was the only person apparently contacted by Wired for its Gore story.

The caustic Wired story was quickly picked up by Republicans who, busy planting the Gore-is-a-liar narrative in the press, began the mantra that Gore claimed to have "invented" the Internet. He never did. Nonetheless, pundits on the right (Bill Kristol) and left (Mark Shields) unloaded on Gore, as journalists ran with with the much more pleasing "invented" phrase. Even in its follow-up Gore/internet article, Wired, which knew Gore never claimed to have "invented" anything, effortlessly adopted the GOP spin, reporting in the very first paragraph that Gore "claimed to have invented the Internet." For that, Wired announced in 1999, the VP was "spewing half-witted comments."

<snip>

UPDATE: Despite the fact Wired News is regularly touted in company press releases as the "online home of Wired Magazine," the two outlets have had seperate owners since 1998, which I should have noted. Wired News should be the one apologizing to Gore, not Wired Magazine.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/wired-owes-al-gore-an-apo_b_19980.html


Also, did you know that Wired's Declan McCullagh has claimed credit for inventing the so-called "Roman Shower" sexual fetish? (Some people say).

[Sparkly]

7. Yup, one of MANY lies the MSM went right along with about Gore...

NY Times, Washington Post, teevee newz punditry, all of them. :mad:

[Ian David]

8. They also said that he was wooden...

because he weighed the same as a duck.

[Ravy]

9. It's a fair cop. nt

[cascadiance]

10. NO! It was Pac Bell in their ads who were the ones claiming to have "invented the internet" then!

And of course everyone forgets that!

If someone has a lot of videotapes of TV content back from the mid nineties, etc. when these ads were running, I think it would make a VERY cool Youtube to put up to help bring down this freeper notion and point a finger back at corporate America where the problem belongs!

Anyone out there find one of those Pac Bell ads?

[Uncle Joe]

11. Off yee go to the greatest pages!

Thanks for the thread Ravy.:thumbsup:

[Ravy]

12. And thanks to you and others for the recs!

:toast:

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

14. K&R. Mom & I just had a major battle because she

repeated this BS.

Sheesh. Some people's moms.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

18. Have her read the second half of this link.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

[DefenseLawyer]

15. I wish

that idiots like Bob Shrum hadn't been "advising" Mr. Gore back in 2000. I wish that as soon as this ridiculous lie was spouted by the right wing hit machine and their lackeys in the press that Mr. Gore would have gone on television and said "I did not invent the internet. I never claimed to have invented the internet. Anyone who claims that I said that is an idiot or a liar, or both." Urban legends have far more staying power than news stories, they have to be immediately and forcefully debunked and that must be repeated at every opportunity until the story is dead.

[troubleinwinter]

16. A week ago...

my father was telling me some of this. Dad (78) worked at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (associated with University of California - Berkeley), and then for NASA. He told me of the vital support from Gore towards the development and implementation of the internet... dad was THERE at the time.

From V. Cerf, inventor of the Internet Protocol:

Al Gore and the Internet

By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf

Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.

As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.

As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science.

As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies that spawned it. He served as the major administration proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to schools and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are on the Internet. Gore provided much-needed political support for the speedy privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it to become a commercially-driven operation.

There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's rapid growth since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been political support for its privatization and continued support for research in advanced networking technology. No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President. Gore has been a clear champion of this effort, both in the councils of government and with the public at large.

The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term and consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to American citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world.

Dad bought me my copy of 'The Assault On Reason' the day it hit stores (but only after he was sure he had his OWN copy!).

Gore is a man of true vision.

[Mabus]

21. Wow

That's pretty interesting.

I don't blame him for making sure he had a copy of TAOR of his own first. It is a great book. I recommended it to my nephew a few while back and it blew his socks off. He's 18 and is still learning.

[argyl]

19. That wacky Al Gore.Next thing you know he'll say he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Ravy]

20. Hah!

Thanks, I needed a good laugh this evening.

[Triana]

22. Al Gore has vision - and intelligence for grappling with complex issues...

...that's why they HATE him.

[Rex]

23. Repukes still don't know how many there are!

Internets run by vacuum tubes and batteries! Series!

[info being]

24. Agreed. Also want to say that it isn't for him to decide...

...whether or not he should run and what the impact should be. If he's serious about making maximum impact, he has to try. Let us, the primary voters, decide who the right person is.

[Ravy]

25. That is a really good point. nt.

[Swamp Rat]

26. NeoGore is beyond the Internet

He is "The One!" :D