> >The "I invented the Internet" quote is on tape and cannot be explained
> >away!!! That is not to say the other's are untrue, but lets stick with
> the
> >facts...
> >
> >JeffF
>
> Ummm...
>
> No, it isn't. Whoever told you it was is lying to you...
>
> From _Wired_
>
> The Mother of Gore's Invention
> by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>
> 3:00 a.m. Oct. 17, 2000 PDT
> WASHINGTON -- If it's true that Al Gore created the Internet, then I
> created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story.
>
> I was the first reporter to question the vice president's improvident
> boast, way back when he made it in early 1999....
>
> 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.
>
> During a March 1999 CNN interview, while trying to differentiate
> himself from rival Bill Bradley, Gore boasted: "During my service in
> the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the
> Internet."
>
> 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. Republicans on Capitol Hill noticed the Wired
> News writeup and started faxing around tongue-in-cheek press releases
> -- inveterate neatnik Trent Lott claimed to have invented the paper
> clip -- and other journalists picked up the story too.
>
> My article never used the word "invented," but it didn't take long for
> Gore's claim to morph into something he never intended.
>
> The terrible irony in this exchange is that while Gore certainly
> didn't create the Internet, he was one of the first politicians to
> realize that those bearded, bespectacled researchers were busy
> crafting something that could, just maybe, become pretty important.
>
> In January 1994, Gore gave a landmark speech at UCLA about the
> "information superhighway."
>
> Many portions -- discussions of universal service, wiring classrooms
> to the Net, and antitrust actions -- are surprisingly relevant even
> today...
>
> It's also true that, as a senator, Gore in the 1980s supported
> universities' efforts to increase funding for NSFNet, a measure that
> became law in the High Performance Computing Act of 1991. Gore's guest
> columns in Byte magazine at the time showed an appreciation of
> technology that was far from usual on Capitol Hill.
>
> But it's also difficult to argue with a straight face that the
> Internet we know today would not exist if Gore had decided to practice
> the piano instead of politics.
>
> By the time Gore took notice of the Net around 1987, the basics were
> already in place. The key protocol, TCP/IP, was written and the
> culture of the Net had blossomed through Usenet and mailing lists, as
> chronicled in Eric Raymond's Jargon File. At best, Gore's involvement
> merely hastened its development....
I agree with what everyone else is saying, that he didn't say and he
didn't believe that he 'created' the internet. But the article that someone
had a link to a week or so ago, on ZDnet I think, has Al Gore saying he was
working with a precursor to the internet in 77 or 78. So do we trust one set
of on-line journalists, the ZDnet article, who have Al Gore working with the
technology for a long time or the above on-line journalist who says Al Gore
didn't have much at all to do with the internet? I think he was way ahead of
the curve, contrary to the article above.
Go Yanks!
Kevin
