Monday, July 05, 2004
Right-wing lies are harder to kill than Dracula. Case in point: Dennis G. Ortega repeating the 4-year-old, thoroughly discredited canard that Al Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet" ("Choice Cuts," June 27).
For the umpteen-millionth time: Gore never claimed he invented the Internet.
What Gore actually said, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on March 9, 1999, was: "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."
Gore was referring to legislation he sponsored in the early 1990s that opened the National Science Foundation network, NSFNET, to commercial use, a step that made possible the Internet as we know it today.
H. BRUCE MILLER Bend
http://www.oregonlive.com/letters/oregonia...55807264770.xml