Centrisity

Who invented the Internet

Some are so blinded by the Right light, that they begin to forget what the truth is.

Mitch was touting the wonders of WiFi and the ability of his little lappy top to connect to the Net while sitting in a local establishment.

Now, I am not sure if he was actually on his own laptop, or if he was on one of the three terminals that are set-up within 'The Rock'. Those terminals have been there for several years, and were definately pre-Bush, but he goes on to make a further claim:

Just think; had Algore won the 2000 election, I'd probably be walking behind a mule pushing an iron plow right now.

Now Mitch is a pretty smart guy, when he chooses to be, but this is a preposterous statement, regardless of the tongue-and-cheek nature of it. More accurately, it is BECAUSE of Al Gore, that Mitch was able to rip the man.

Now don't get excited, I am not claiming Al Gore invented the Internet. In fact, Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. "WHAT!", you say, "He never said that" Hmmmmmmmmm

So lets revisit this little tussle from years gone by, so that everyone is clear on the facts.

First, what did Al Gore ACTUALLY say, and when did he say it:

In an Interview with Wolf Blitzer, Vice President Al Gore stated, and I include the complete context:

BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.

Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

GORE: Well, I will be offering -- I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.

But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. 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.

During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead.

Vint Cerf, one of the the accepted 'Fathers of the Internet' had this to say, the meat of which:

VP Gore was the first or surely among the first of the members of Congress to become a strong supporter of advanced networking while he served as Senator. As far back as 1986, he was holding hearings on this subject (supercomputing, fiber networks...) and asking about their promise and what could be done to realize them.

Now that seems like 'initiative to create' to me, but then that is using the actual definition within the context of the statement, something the Right struggles with.

Even as recently as March 2003 and Apple press release touts:

As a member of the U.S. Congress 25 years ago, he popularized the term “Information Superhighway,” and was instrumental in fighting for federal funds to assist in building what later became the Internet. He has remained an active leader in technology—launching a public/private effort to wire every classroom and library in America to the Internet.

Mr. Gore serves as a Senior Advisor to Google, Inc. He is also a visiting professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Fisk University and Middle Tennessee State University.

So, ironically, it is more BECAUSE of Al Gore, that Mr. 'Shoot in the Dark' was able to pan on the guy, not instead of!

OH, not to leave you hanging, how did the actual statement get changed and twisted into something it wasn't . . well . . . ask Richard Armey, R-Texas.

So spin away my friends, but the only way to not give credit where credit is due, is to parse the words or twist the truth and lie about what the simple reality is. Al Gore played an integral role in allowing Mitch the vehicle to spread lies about him . . . again!