"Ah, Al Gore. Brains and the ability to talk in sentences which describe ideas. Very sexy."
Gore: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
TRUTH: The Internet is an outgrowth of a Pentagon program established in 1969. In the 1980s, Gore supported legislation considered favorable to the Internet’s development.
Gore: “I helped to negotiate an agreement with the Internet service providers to put a parent-protection page up and give parents the ability to click on all the websites that their children have visited lately. That’ll put a lot of bargaining leverage in the hands of parents.”
TRUTH: Bartlett Cleland of the Internet Education Foundation, seven months earlier: “There was no Gore involvement. They hijacked this issue. He makes it sound like he led the project. I can’t imagine what he will invent tomorrow”
Gore: “The big drug companies…are now spending more money on advertising and promotion — you see all these ads — than they are on research and development.”
TRUTH: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reported in July that drug companies spent between $5.8 billion and $8.3 billion on marketing and $21 billion on research in 1998, according to CBS News.
Gore: “I was the author of that proposal [the Earned Income Tax Credit]. I wrote that, so I say [to Bill Bradley], Welcome aboard. That is something for which I have been the principal proponent for a long time.”
TRUTH: The original EITC law was enacted in 1975. Gore entered Congress in 1977.
Gore: “I have actually not questioned Governor Bush's experience.”
TRUTH: In an interview printed by the New York Times on March 12, Gore said: “You have to wonder whether [Bush] has the experience to be president. I mean, you really have to wonder. ... You have to wonder: Does Governor Bush have the experience to be president? ... Again you have to wonder: Does George Bush have the experience to be president?”
Gore: "You know [Bush] has never put together a budget. The governor of Texas is by far the weakest chief executive position in America and does not have the responsibility of forming or presenting a budget. He's never done that."
TRUTH: Texas law defines the governor as "the chief budget officer of the state" and orders him to distribute his budget to every member of the legislature. And Bush, in fact, has formed and presented budgets as governor.
Gore: At Sept. 22 press conference, Gore says, “I've been a part of the discussions on the strategic reserve since the days when it was first established.”
TRUTH: President Ford established the Strategic Petroleum Reserves when he signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) on December 22, 1975 — two years before Al Gore became a congressman.
Gore: "Under Bush, Texas' recidivism rate has increased by 25 percent."
TRUTH: Nobody knows what has happened to the recidivism rate under Bush because those figures haven't been published, due to extensive lag times in reporting. The most recent numbers are from 1994, according to the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council.
Gore: It’s not fair to say, ‘Okay, after his sister died, he continued in the same relationship with the tobacco industry.’ I did not. I did not. I began to confront them forcefully. I don’t see the inconsistency there.”
TRUTH: The same month Gore’s sister died in 1984, he received a $1,000 speaking fee from U.S. Tobacco. The next year, he voted against cigarette and tobacco tax increases three times and favored a bill allowing major cigarette makers to purchase discounted tobacco. In the 1988 campaign, Gore bragged of his tobacco background: “I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put [tobacco] in the plant beds and transferred it. I’ve hoed it, I’ve dug in it, I’ve sprayed it, I’ve chopped it, I’ve shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn, and stripped it and sold it” (Newsday, 2-26-88). |
