PoliBlog: Gore and the Net

September 05, 2024

Gore and the Net

Not to dredge up too much of the past, but a comment in my post below on Kerry challenged the whole Gore/internet thing.

The post was quite thoughtful, but I disagree with the thesis, which was that the Gore quote about taking the initiative in creating the internet was true, and therefore a bad example of a political lie. Said Nathan Callahan:

I’m no great fan of Al Gore, but I’m also no great fan of perpetuating a misconception.

Gore’s remark about his involvement in the creation of the Internet took place on March 9, 1999 during CNN's "Late Edition" show. Specifically, what Gore said was "I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

The fact of the matter is that he did.

In 1986, Gore wrote in favor for funding of the National Science Foundation Authorization Act. That was only one year after Dennis Jennings chose TCP/IP as the protocol for the planned National Science Foundation Network (NSFnet). Isn’t that what you call “taking the initiative?”

Let’s put Gore’s action into historical context, not Coulteresque hyperbole. When Gore endorsed the NSFnet, the IBM PC was only four years old. The Apple II computer was still in widespread use. The number of hosts on the Internet was 5,089. Entire universities were just beginning to make their initial online connection. Isn’t it fair to say that the Internet was literally being “created?”

In 1988, Gore argued for the creation of a high-capacity national data network. He urged the federal government to consolidate several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." He worked with the Reagan and Bush administrations, to secure the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act.

Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work (and gives you the technology to snipe about Gore), have gone on record confirming Gore's role in U.S. Internet development.

“No other elected official to our knowledge,” they said, “has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.”

Writing about Gore they concluded, “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.”

A word of advice: Next time you give an example of a political lie or embellishment be sure it’s not your own.

Given the basic challenge of the last line, not to mention the "Coulteresque" ref, I had to respond on the main blog! ;)

I think it is quite clear that Gore did not help "create" the interent. I think it is far closer to the truth to say that he helped in its growth. ARPANET, USENET, BITNET and other elements of what we now refer to as the internet existed well before the time period ref'd above (indeed, it started back in the 1960s). So I stand by this as an example of an exaggeration that was the hallmark of Gore's discourse.

Check out this timeline, for example (or an even better timeline here). For more detail, go here. Links to a list of histories can be found here.

Indeed, the whole point is that instead of just saying he was a "supporter" of the development of the internet, or that he was involved in key funding that helped the internet grow, or focusing on NSFNET, he had to make himself sound almost like the father of the internet. There is a substantial difference. I don't deny his role in promoting the 'net's evolution.

I can accept, however, that it hardly is the most egregious example of his fibbing problem. Mostly I find this one the most amusing, however. Further, if that was the only example of such embellishment, it wouldn't be that noteworthy. But in the overall pool of examples, it is amplified.

And even if I drop that one from the post, we still have the whole "Love Story" being based on he and Tipper and the the FEMA example from the first debate with Bush still stands, amongst others. Even if you want to split hairs on the internet quote, I don't think that it obviates the basic point.

Posted by Steven Taylor at September 5, 2024 04:12 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Greetings,

You say that Gore’s Internet quote is “an example of an exaggeration that was the hallmark of Gore's discourse.”

I say that exaggeration is a hallmark of American political campaigns. With this perspective, Gore stands somewhere on moderately obnoxious middle ground. The blowback that Gore received for saying "I took the initiative in creating the Internet," however, was far beyond reasonable political critique.

Gore’s quote occurred while responding to a Wolf Blitzer question about why Democrats should support Gore instead of Bill Bradley.

“I took the initiative in creating the Internet," Gore said. “I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”

In spite of his overuse of the word “initiative,” I don’t think anyone watching the interview was deceived into thinking that Gore created HTML code. In fact, Gore’s quote sounds like common Dale Carnegie discourse in American Electoral politics and certainly doesn’t represent a hallmark for any one particular person.

You also refer to the FEMA quote from the first debate with Bush as another example of Gore’s exaggerationitis. Gore said he went to a disaster site in Texas with James Lee Witt, FEMA’s Director. It turned out that Gore went to Texas with Witt’s deputy. This hardly seems like a gross overstatement, especially when you consider that Gore traveled to 17 other disaster sites with Witt. But the folks at Fox News interpreted this gaff on Gore’s part as an exaggeration. An exaggeration of what? That he knew Witt? Isn’t it more likely that Gore confused an obligatory Vice-Presidential visit to one of the 17 Witt disaster sites with the one non-Witt disaster site in Texas?

You also mentioned the “Love Story” saga as another example of Gore’s hallmark disease. Gore told a “Time” magazine reporter that Eric Segal used Tipper and himself as models for “the uptight preppy and his free-spirited girlfriend in ‘Love Story.’”

Segal later confirmed that the uptight preppy was, indeed, based on a combination of Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones --Gore’s college roommate. But Tipper? It seemed that Gore exaggerated once again. Tipper was not the model for his free-spirited girlfriend.

Why then would Gore include his wife in on the saga? Is this another case of super-sized embellishment? Unfortunately, no.

The “Time” magazine interviewer had asked Gore where he learned about Segal’s use of his character. “All I know is what Segal told reporters in Tennessee,” Gore said.

It turns out that the “Nashville Tennessean” misquoted Segal, including Tipper in the “Love Story” melodrama.

These three so-called exaggerations formed a media persona for Gore that, to this day, he can't shake. You may think that this dredging up the past. I don’t. We’re fast approaching the next presidential election.

Nathan Callahan

Posted by: Nathan Callahan at September 5, 2024 06:54 PM

I think the word that causes the trouble isn't "initiative" it is "creating"--as I said, had he said something like "I took the initiative in furthering the development of the internet" then it would have been a non-issue. And I think that you are over-looking my references--clearly the net was in development well before Gore's contributions. Indeed, that is my point--he has a tendency to over-reach for no good reason, often on relatively minor things. I honestly think that it goes beyong a media persona (although I agree there is one) to part of his character.

And I recall a differnt quote from Segal, but I will have to look it up.

I stand corrected on the FEMA example, as I was thinking that he didn't make the trip at all.

However, there were others, such as the claim about his mother-in-laws medication, and it turned out that it wasn't about his mother-in-law, but was info from a Congressional report.

Then there was the whole, "Union Label" song as a lullaby when he was a kid.

Indeed, the point about all of this is that he had a strange tendency to embellish unimportant things.

Posted by: Steven at September 5, 2024 08:05 PM

And I recall a differnt quote from Segal, but I will have to look it up.

I stand corrected on the FEMA example, as I was thinking that he didn't make the trip at all.

However, there were others, such as the claim about his mother-in-laws medication, and it turned out that it wasn't about his mother-in-law, but was info from a Congressional report.

Then there was the whole, "Union Label" song as a lullaby when he was a kid.

Indeed, the point about all of this is that he had a strange tendency to embellish unimportant things.

Posted by: Steven at September 5, 2024 08:05 PM

And I recall a differnt quote from Segal, but I will have to look it up.

I stand corrected on the FEMA example, as I was thinking that he didn't make the trip at all.

However, there were others, such as the claim about his mother-in-laws medication, and it turned out that it wasn't about his mother-in-law, but was info from a Congressional report.

Then there was the whole, "Union Label" song as a lullaby when he was a kid.

Indeed, the point about all of this is that he had a strange tendency to embellish unimportant things.

Posted by: Steven at September 5, 2024 08:05 PM

All three of the examples you use are bad ones.

On the internet, he was pretty clearly not trying to pretend that he solely created the internet, and the context makes that clear.

On Love Story, he was precisely correct. He quoted a newspaper story and said "I don't know, but that's what the story said." He was right, and it was the story that was wrong.

On FEMA, he made the trip with a deputy and had made many other trips with Witt. He obviously wasn't trying to exaggerate anything.

There's isn't a politician alive who doesn't twist things to make himself look good. However, when all your examples turn out to be urban legends, shouldn't you wonder if your basic thesis is true, rather than keeping at it because you "know" it's true even if the evidence doesn't support it?

Posted by: Kevin Drum at September 5, 2024 09:00 PM

I stand corrected on FEMA, and I said so at some point in all this (it is running together)--but I will admit it again here.

The interenet thing I stand by, as while it may be that Gore didn't, per se, try to say what he said, it does fit into a broader pattern (as does the love story thing)--look at the much longer, and annotated post that I added a few minutes ago.

Posted by: Steven at September 5, 2024 09:05 PM

Believe me, I am no fan of Gore. But, I can well remember him talking and talking and talking about the "information superhighway" in the mid to late 1980s, when I was covering Capitol Hill. He certainly did not invent the Internet, but I credit him for being about the first politician, certainly the first Senator, to talk about the importance of the Internet.

As for Love Story, well it sucked as a movie, so I would have just have kept my trap shut, if I were Al boy.

My favorite, though, is his claim to country roots -- St. ALbans and the fancy hotel in DC he grew up in. He's really Eloise.

Posted by: chris at September 5, 2024 09:53 PM

Yep, the farm stuff was pretty good.

And you are right about the "information superhighway"--and I really do give him credit for his legislative work in that area.

Still, the statement was pompous, and in the context of the other ones has lead to it having an emblematic feel.

Posted by: Steven at September 5, 2024 10:18 PM

Come now.

Has anyone used the 'I'm just a plainfolk, countryboy'-shtick any more vividly than Dubya?

Very nice smackdown of your feeble arguments by Mr. Callahan.

WRT the so-called "internet lie"--the whole story illustrates that Gore was indeed a man of vision; he saw the possibilities of the 'net back in the day when most of us thought 'Pong' was the pinnacle of computer technology.

But, poor Steven is determined to be a hack, so he repeats the 'Union Label' story as another example. What Steven ignores is that Gore told the story as a joke and it was taken as such by his audience.

Steven neglects to mention Dubya's claim that the 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' was his favorite story as a child. Of course, Dubya was over 25 when that book was published.

Posted by: JadeGold at September 6, 2024 07:22 AM