Re: Al Gore's 21 lies

[Robbie Honerkamp <robbie@opus.shorty.com>]

Thus spake Levien de Braal (levien@cc.gatech.edu):

> >> FICTION: Al Gore claimed responsibility for inventing the Internet in the
> >> 1990's.
> >> FACT : Shocked scientists were quick to speak out, explaining that the
> >> Internet had been in widespread use by government and educational
> >> institutions since the early 1970's.
> 
> ACTUAL FACT: Gore said: "I took the initiative in Congress in creating the
> Internet." In context: the internet as we know it today. His statement,
> although true, limits it to acts of Congress, which is a rather non-techie
> way of looking at the net. BTW, folks like Vint Cerf actually back Gore up,
> but setting the record straight isn't the main objective of the media.
> Poking fun is much more entertaining and draws more eyeballs.

ACTUAL ACTUAL FACT: The quote is really:
 "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative 
 in creating the Internet"

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/09/president.2000/transcript.gore/

He didn't claim to 'invent' it, he claimed to create it, which is something
the original document gets wrong. However, he can't create something that
already existed. While he supported legal initiatives to improve technology
for education, the Internet would still be just as sucessful today with or
without him. 

As Wired magazine says:

 In 1990, Gore introduced a bill that would allow the federal government to enter the business
 of crafting software for teachers to use. Another Gore plan would create a new federal
 research center for educational computing to support an "information systems highway." 
                                  
 But the system he envisioned bears little resemblance to the PC-dominated Internet. 

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18390,00.html

He goes on to describe how his information highway would allow supercomputers
to connect to each other, leaving out any mention of the Internet.

Gore also supported the Clipper Chip, a government-devised key escrow encryption
system widely razzed by the technical community. 

> >> FICTION: Al Gore said he was the first to discover the Love Canal nuclear
> >> accident.
> >> FACT: The incident was already discovered, being investigated, and covered
> >> widely in the press for many months before Gore was aware of it.
> 
> Also untrue. He gave more attention to it, he found out about the case, but
> he never claimed he was the first to discover it happened.

 "I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. I had the first 
 hearing on that issue and Toone, Tenn.  But that was the one that started it 
 all."  (Al Gore, The New York Times, 12/10/99)

> >> FICTION: Al Gore remembers his mother lulling him to sleep as a baby by
> >> singing the popular ditty, "Wear The Union Label".
> >> FACT: The popular ditty was created by the unions when Gore was 27 years
> >> old.
> 
> ... but the tune itself is much, much older. Only the text is that recent.

Of course, she couldn't sing it if the words hadn't been written yet.. :-)
 
> >> FICTION: Gore pretends to champion the rights of poor women to be tested 
> >> regularly for breast cancer with the most modern technology.
> >> FACT: While giving a speech on the subject in September, Gore didn't know
> >> what a mammogram was.
> 
> And this is related how? A politician can be in support of heart disease
> research without knowing what a SPECT (Single Positron Emission Computed
> Tomography) study is, or how it works.

I can't find anything on a cursory search of the 'net about him not knowing
what a mammogram is, so this could very well be false. However, while I'd
not expect a politician to know what a SPECT or a CT scan is, I'd certainly
expect him to have heard of a mammogram or an X-ray before.
 
> I'm not saying that Al Gore never told a lie, nor that he doesn't have the
> tendency to skip over details when mildly exagerating about his
> accomplishments, but it's not even nearly as bad as the above post claims.

Actually, it might be worse. I didn't research the original post before I
forwarded it, but the quick amounts of research I did for a quick reply
turned up quite a few more mistruths. The page at:

http://www.gargaro.com/algore.html

"Al Gore Quotes- Stupid quotes and lies by Al Gore"

has information and research on many Al Gore mistruths, including refutations
of some of the ones that were in the original list I sent out.

It's about like the Dan Quale jokes- he never said the majority of the things
he was quoted as saying. He just said a few totally stupid things in the
right (or wrong) places, and it snowballed from there.

Bush is no better- look at some of the braindead things he's said (see
last Sunday's Doonesbury cartoon for a brief collection).

Robbie