commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Al.Gore.and.the.Inte1.html
The first press reports, then, repeated the misleading argument in Wired News that was amplified by the Armey press release. It is likely, therefore, that Wired News and Armey, or third parties whose thinking derived from them, were the main sources for the initial mainstream press reports. The first, very forceful defenses of Gore's record by the Internet's scientific leadership (specifically Steve Wolff, with additional comments by Tony Rutkowski) appear only a couple of days later, in an article in the 3/18/00 New York Times by Katie Hafner. That same day there also appears the first article in Nexis to falsify Gore's quote, an Arizona Republic article by Sandy Grady that states: In a weekend interview, Gore, who prides himself as cyberhip, bragged, "I created the Internet". This is also the first article to connect the Internet theme to the recurring theme of Gore's supposedly rigid personality. The theme of Gore exhibiting a "pattern" of false statements first appears in a column by Jack Germond and Jules Whitcover the next day. Their point (at least overtly) is not that Gore exhibits such a pattern, but that he faces the danger that his opponents will discern such a pattern and hold it against him. They, too, repeat the false claim that the "the Defense Department began funding the Internet in 1969, eight years before Mr. Note that this is actually a corruption of earlier formulations, which at least identified 1969 as the year when ARPANET began operation (not funding). An article by John Schwartz in the 3/21/99 Washington Post provides further heated commentary in support of Gore from the Internet's technical leadership, this time Dave Farber and Vint Cerf. Cerf in particular is quoted as saying this: 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 in his current role and in his earlier role as senator. On the other hand, Farber was also quoted as saying this: The guy used an inappropriate word. If he had said he was instrumental in the development of what it is now, he'd be accurate. This is the first, and to my knowledge the only, demurral from among the scientists who have expressed support for Gore's contributions. Katie Hafner of the New York Times, who cowrote a book about the history of the Internet, is also cited as an authority in support of Gore. Significantly, however, this article also provides the clearest statement to that point that Gore had claimed to be the inventor of the Internet. The statement comes from Dan Quayle: "if Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell-check". The "Internet" controversy is first connected to the then-developing "pattern" of supposed reinventions and exaggerations by Al Gore on 3/21/99. Petersburg Times says this: Gore's recent statement that as a member of Congress he had taken the initiative in "creating the Internet" drew hoots of laughter, especially from Republicans. Gore has long been a promoter of the Internet, but he didn't invent it. Trying to keep a straight face, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott quickly issued a news release claiming that he invented the paper clip. A year ago Gore told reporters that he and his wife, Tipper, at the time when they were college sweethearts, were the inspiration for the novel Love Story. Gore's quote, having grown familiar, has now been reduced to a few words, without the context of the first half of the sentence. The phrase "took the initiative" is now outside of quote marks as well. The pattern of equating "creating" and "invent ing " has begun to settle in. Much more importantly, the Internet story is now coupled with another of the now-canonical "exaggeration" stories -- the "Love Story" story. The author's claim is false on two counts: Gore did not make such a claim about himself and Tipper (he only told reporters about a news article that mistakenly made such a claim), and Segal did not contradict Gore (who was in fact one of the models for the hero of Segal's book). The decontextualized and tendentiously paraphrased "Internet" story is now coupled with the multiply falsified "Love Story" story -- a pattern that will grow much more intense later on. Another example of the nascent pattern is found in a 3/21/99 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by Michael Ruby. The first sign came a couple of years ago, when Gore revealed that he and wife Tipper were the star-crossed pairing Erich Segal had in mind when he wrote the 1970 weeper "Love Story". He should have wired this first with Segal, who later said it wasn't true. More recently, he placed himself up there with Edison and Bell, claiming to have invented the Internet. One small benefit of this curious fable Pentagon technocrats and university academics actually did the job three decades ago was a blizzard of one-liners from some normally unfunny guys. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, for one, weighed in that he, in fact, invented the paper clips that "bind us together as a nation", and his office hinted that their man might be the fifth Beatle. House Majority Leader Dick Armey wanted everyone to know that he invented the interstate highway system. Then, last week on a visit to Iowa, the veep revealed other unknown facets of his past. He had been a small-business man and a home builder, Gore said, and he had lived on a farm learning to slop the hogs, to plow a "steep hillside" with mules and "take up hay all day long in the hot sun". He was only 28 when he was elect ed to Congress in 1976 and has been in public life ever since. The "Gore as exaggerator" pattern is fully developed in this passage. It is the first of the "Internet" stories in Nexis to use harsh language -- "bizarre" -- and to engage in psychoanalysis -- "midlife". It states clearly (and, again, falsely) that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet", and it repeats the false information that the Internet had been invented in 1969. It then sandwiches this misleading material between two other false entries in the "Gore exaggeration" canon -- the "Love Story" myth and the equally false claim that Gore had lied when he claimed to have performed onerous chores on the family farm in Tennessee. Nexis records no further development of the story before Wired News' third report, on 3/23/99. This report begins as follows: WASHINGTON -- Al Gore's timing was as unfortunate as his boast. Just as Republicans were beginning to eye the 2000 presidential race in earnest, the vice president offered up a whopper of a tall tale in which he claimed to have invented the Internet. This article repeats the false story about Gore's having claimed credit for "Love Story", citing the Washington Times. It then repeats the false story that Gore had wrongly claimed to have worked on a farm, citing the New York Post. The 3/23/99 article does not mention any of the support for Gore that had been offered by the Internet's scientific leadership; In fact, nothing in the article is supportive of Gore, and its tone is well captured by the following sentence: Yet the Republicans missed a perfect opportunity to respond to Gore's fabrication. Against this background it becomes possible to judge Wired News' new article of 10/17/00. Are the countless jibes at Al's expense truly justified? Did he really play a key part in the development of the Net? The short answer is that while even his supporters admit the vice president has an unfortunate tendency to exaggerate, the truth is that Gore never did claim to have "invented" the Internet. This is the first time that Wired News has made such a statement. It does not mention that its article of 3/23/99 had not only stated the contrary, but had characterized Gore's supposed claim as a lie. That statement was enough to convince me, with the encouragement of my then-editor James Glave, to write a brief article that questioned the vice president's claim. The original 3/11/99 article was no more brief than typical Wired News articles. In fact it provides extensive commentary on Gore's Internet record, some of which I summarized above. Republicans on Capitol Hill noticed the ...
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