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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry
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To: TigerPaw who wrote (9945)3/24/2004 3:32:59 PM
From: Karen LawrenceRead Replies (1) of 81568
 
If Wolf Blitzer had thought that Gore was saying, as neocons continue to lie, that he invented the Internet, he would have nailed him on it during that interview.

That Al Gore once claimed to have "invented the Internet" is now part of electoral folklore -- one item in a litany of Gore "exaggerations" or "lies" that his opponents trot out to discredit him. At Tuesday's debate the line became the basis for a flatfooted one-liner George W. Bush lobbed to deflect Gore's onslaught of statistics: "This is a man who has great numbers -- I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, he invented the calculator."

The sheer cheek of Gore's purported claim invites mockery. Everybody knows the Internet is an extraordinarily complex piece of engineering that only incredibly smart scientists could have "invented." Politicians need not apply.


But things that "everybody knows" are always worth examining for defects. And the "Gore claims he invented the Net" trope is so full of holes that it makes you wish there were product recalls for bad information.

Gore never claimed to have "invented" the Internet. What he said was: During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

As my colleague Jake Tapper carefully reported here last year, at worst that statement is a minor exaggeration of Gore's legislative record -- and miles away from the "I built it from scratch!" lie into which it has been twisted.

dir.salon.com
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