Al Gore Deserves More Credit, Guys

Afternoon Tea Audio Podcasts:

Al Gore Deserves More Credit, Guys: June 7, 2006:

I have observed in the past that it takes nerve to criticize Al Gore in one breath, call for a carbon tax in the next, and yet have neither the honor, the grace, nor the guts to remind readers that Al Gore was the driving force behind the Clinton administration's attempt to raise energy taxes back in 1993...

Comments

[Bruce Webb]

" A prophet has no honor in his own country"

Almost biblical. In fact biblical: John 4:44

I am not saying that Al measures up to that guy from Galilee. But if Gore wants it he has my vote.

[Something Polish]

I'm not in the tank for Gore, but he's certainly better than, well, much of the field. I suggested his '08 bumper sticker slogan over at Altermans: "Gore: Right then; right now." Seems to work on a number of levels.

[Davis X. Machina]

In moral theology classes I learnt long ago that true restitution for theft requires the return of the thing stolen, and not a substitute, to the one from whom it was stolen, and not a surrogate.

Gore '08 -- Deus lo vult.

[PaulC]

The worst part is that Gore cannot step up and demand credit without a slew of "jokes" of the form: Al Gore invented the carbon tax.

[PaulC]

...speaking of which, there's never a bad time to try again to set the record straight about Al Gore and the internet. The letter from Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, designers of TCP/IP:

"Bob and I believe that the vice president deserves significant credit for his early recognition of the importance of what has become the Internet."

"I thought you might find this short summary of sufficient interest to share it with Politech and the IP lists, respectively."

Full text:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01394.html

I did vote for Gore of course, but I wish I could say I had as much respect for him then as I do now.

[kharris]

My guess is that the Perfesser is repeatedly saying nice things about Gore because, having served in the same administration as Gore, the Perfesser had a chance to observe Gore's mastery of subject matter. As an ivory tower kinda guy, the Perfesser thinks highly of the mastery of subject matter, even above the mastery of political skulduggery and spin. (Am I guessing right?)

OK, let's have a show of hands - (this means you guys at NRO, Faux, the White House and dang it, WP and NYT) - Who does not prefer mastery of subject matter to mastery of skullduggery and spin?

[PaulC]

Sorry, three postings in a row, but I can't help myself.

I have one theory about the reaction to Al Gore. The conventional wisdom driving DC press coverage is driven by cynicism. No one in the nihilist clique of the DC press corps believes that any politician can possibly be knowledgable on *anything* substantive--particularly related to science and technology. So when your typically innumerate scientifically illiterate reporter wakes up one day in 1999 and notices finally that computers and the internet are this big deal, and it catches them by surprise, they cannot *fathom* that anyone else, particularly a politician, might have been ahead of the curve, and in fact might have participated in public policy that helped it along. (Yes, you'd think they'd remember Senator Gore talking about a National Information Superhighway before the Internet was known outside of geekdom, but clearly not.)

Reporters also know that politicians puff their resumes a lot, so they assume anything has to be viewed as puffery. The question of who to call on it then comes down to loyalty. They didn't like Al Gore for whatever reason, so they focused on attacking him.

I cannot honestly say that Gore used the best phrasing--or even very good phrasing--in explaining his role in the development of the Internet. I wish I could. The fact is that while I'm willing to interpret "I took the initiative" as more of a "there at the creation" claim I feel it was kind of a gaffe for Gore to put it the way he did and left him open to the attacks that would come predictably from hostile challengers and media wags.

Yet, Kahn and Cerf stated the truth eloquently, and it is no small claim:

"The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening."

Fast forward to 2006. Some idiot journalist finally gets it about global warming. They thought is was this geeky Soylent Green fantasy or scare tactics promoted by environmentalists. But now it's beginning to look even to the very uninformed like real science (a more precise analogy is the state of the lung cancer/tobacco connection half a century ago).

And, here's Al Gore again, right in the middle of it. (It beats me why that is, because he's not a scientist. I don't think he's really a brilliant thinker either, though he's smart enough. So my conclusion is that he's the real deal on these issues; he likes them, thinks hard, and comes to good conclusions about them.)

So we're going to hear the same BS all over again: "I'm a hip, cynical DC journalist and I was too dumb to predict this. How could Gore, a politician, have predicted it? He's lying."

I think it would be a good time for Gore to re-establish his credibility with respect to the internet. He can do this by repeating a simple, truthful incantation at every opportunity: "I was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening." (and give credit to Cerf and Kahn to avoid the inevitable plagiarism charges; imagine if Dubya had to work so hard to cover himself.)

If he can do this, he can conceivably reverse a stigma and turn it into a strength. The strength can then be applied to the current, more important, battle over what to do about rising atmospheric carbon levels.

[CMike]

Brad,

Show some respect to those of us who are forever in the cheap seats. At the end of too many sentences during this podcast your volume drops off to an inaudible level. Project!

[admiral_tirpitz]

PaulC,

Give it a break. The man did not lie and the entire effort to slam him for "inventing the Internet" was a right wing smear campaign which distorted what he said and then distorted history. This was obvious in 2000 and remains obvious now.

Engaging in frenetic debate over the nuance of Gore's off the cuff commentary is silly -- as attempting to clarify comments which are in fact crystal clear. Gore made no mischaracterization of his involvement and people who take issue with his statement are simply ignorant.

If this needs to be said again, it needs to be said again. But perhaps if it is said often enough those distorting the historical record can explain themselves instead of slandering others for a while.

[PaulC]

admiral_tirpitz: "If this needs to be said again, it needs to be said again."

The truth needs to be repeated at least as many times as the lies. To accomplish that, you'd need to get some media outlet to publish a copy of of Cerf and Kahn's letter every day for the next couple of years.

The problem is that people who tell lies are aware that they need to repeat them to sustain them, but people who tell the truth stupidly imagine that saying it once is enough.

I devoted one paragraph in my whole comment to "nuance." Your reply almost suggests that that was my main point. I still stand by the statement that Gore's phrasing was not a great way to put what he wanted to say to a hostile audience. It's a pretty minor issue compared to the fact that, yes, he did work really hard on the policies that led to today's Internet and was absolutely right to take credit for it, and that what he got in return was a smear campaign that would have happened regardless or what he said. But I would still insist that Kahn and Cerf's statement makes the same point a lot better. If that's nuance, then I'm a sucker I guess.

[RedCharlie]

to the admiral:
The follwing are not right wing smears: Gore inventing the internet, lying or exaggerating about Love Story, Love Canal, canoe trips, flannel shirts, whathaveyou.

The awful truth is that we really have only the press itself to thank for the meme of Gore as the untrustworthy and exaggerating liar. If you won't take my word for it, take Bob Sommerby's word, or rather, his web site (www.dailyhowler.com) He has devoted his life to documenting how the press has screwed Gore. It's driven Sommerby stark raving shrill. I've come to the conclusion that most Dems (inc. Gore himself) have learned to deny this reality, as the alternative would be to surrender your sanity to shrill unholy madness.

To PaulC:
You set a sisyphean task for Gore. There is no possible way for Gore to individually overcome the institutional bias against him in the press. Gore's credibility is like the Clintons' sexuality. Just as the press has given itself license to pry into the Clintons' private lives in a way that is not acceptable for any other public figure, so too is Gore's credibility allowed to be ridiculed in situations where any other pol would be taken at face value.

I'm not sure what to do about this except to hound the press.

For an example, see my critique (on dailykos) of Richard Harris' review of "An Inconvenient Truth" on NPR.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/7/133619/8442

Gore: right on Bush's tax cuts, right on global warming, right twice on Iraq

[RedCharlie]

PaulC:
There is no phrasing that will persuade a hostile audience. By dwelling on Gore's phrasing, you are just giving in to the meme, and it is a very short jump from regretting phrasing to admitting parsing, and we all know where that leads.

The double standard used to screw Gore drives me into shrill unholy madness quite frequently. The inventing the internet crap is the most classic example.

Here, let me demonstrate. Our local county judge retired this year after 14 years. The speaker who introduced him at the retirement dinner credited him with removing all the wooden bridges in Faulkner County. Now, Judge Carter is a great big bear of a man, and 14 years is a good long time, but gosh, when I heard what he had done, I thought what a remarkable thing for one man to tear down every single wooden bridge in the county with his bare hands. Sheeee-it boys. Judge Carter must be one bad dude, huh?

Except we all really know that when a politician is credited with, or takes credit for, bridges, levees, roads, ports, stadiums, or any other sort of public infrastructure, the pol in question is not claiming to have done the actual work himself. Aside from golden shovels (golden keyboard anyone?), pols do not get their hands dirty with such. No one ever, ever misunderstands this, and no one ever, ever quibbles with the phrasing of such claims except in the case of Al Gore.

Now the internet is probably more like a port, airport, or stadium (as opposed to roads or bridges) in that it was initially built with public funds, but is now managed by private or semiprivate entities. But it is an element of public infrastructure just the same.

But Gore is continually excoriated for claiming credit for building an element of public infrastructure, in a way that no other politician has ever been. The only way to explain this is the double standard used by the press.

and PaulC, I agree, the truth has to be repeated as often as the lies, but we should not worry about our phrasing, except in that we should be as direct and explicit as possible. We should not shrink from stating the truth as simply and clearly as possible.

Republicans build bridges to nowhere. When J.C.R. Licklider of DARPA went to Congress to get the money to turn the bitnet into the internet, Gore is the congressman who got it done. Gore built the internet, and that's just the truth. We have to throw this back in their faces. No apologies, no phrasing, no parsing, just the honest truth.

[RedCharlie]

Who built Hadrian's wall?
Hadrian

Who built the Panama Canal?
Teddy Roosevelt

Who built the autobahns?
Hitler

Who built the Hoover Dam?
FDR

Who built the interstates?
Eisenhower?

Who built the internet?
Al Gore

[PaulC]

FWIW, in 1992 I was a computer science grad student, and a friend of mine in the same department commented about the Clinton/Gore ticket that he only wished the order was reversed. I think I was already vaguely aware of the phrase "information superhighway" and was a regular user of the Internet for Usenet and email. But I didn't really think about Al Gore very much. My friend (who I'd say was both more political and more internet-savvy) did, and clearly thought Gore was the real thing back then as well.

So it was actually with some astonishment that I saw the hostility directed at Gore in 2000. He really had been promoting the Internet for many years when others thought it was just thing for geeks.

My comment about the phrasing was intended as an aside, period.

[Jim Harrison]

You don't have to be a Hari Seldon to notice that competent men are at a decisive disadvantage in declining empires--Tacitus made the same point a couple of thousand years ago. Clinton was forgiven his brains because the press was distracted by the notion that he was some sort of hypersexual scamp, but Gore wasn't protected by scandal. If he runs for president again, the media will destroy him, precisely because he is uniquely qualified to serve. As Nietzsche wrote, it isn't the presumption of merit that offends; but merit itself.

[CMike]

Just to get down in the weeds on this, here is Al Gore's response to a Wolf Blitzer question during a television interview:

“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, environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”

Here's the link to the important Bob Somerby post on the matter. Scroll down to the heading "Where does spin come from? Inventing the Internet" and read Somerby's Chapters I and II on the subject.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml

[Auros]

I think Al Gore would make a superb president. But I think Mark Warner has a similarly technocratic approach to governance, and a far greater talent for the political machinations necessary to actually reach the White House. See his comments at the NH Dem Convention:
http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Series&Code=RWH&ShowVidNum=4&Rot_Cat_CD=RWH&Rot_HT=206&Rot_WD=&ShowVidDays=100&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=365
There are some very pointed remarks about global warming, and how the current administration ignore scientific consensus in many areas.