by Nikolaus Federmann

Created on: June 16, 2007

Former Vice President Al Gore had his head in the idea of the Internet back when personal computers were in their infancy. Unfortunately, a statement he made in 1999 became classic comedic fodder, which seems to overshadow his contributions to the early development of the Internet.

During his interview with Wolf Blitzer, Al Gore stated, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives..." The first thing to note is that Al Gore did not claim to be the Internet's inventor-nor is he its creator. It would be foolish for anyone to make such a claim. He was simply spouting about "initiatives", and failed to clarify his context. If he had stated, "I participated in the development of the Internet,"-which he actually did-that entire interview would have been long forgotten.

"I invented the Internet" was exploited in late night talk show monologues-a misquote that passed from comedian to comedian. You can hear people on the street misquoting Al Gore today, and still getting laughs.

In reality, Al Gore had been talking about linking supercomputers all across the country back in the 1980s. He deserves credit for his groundbreaking work in the early development of the Internet. According to the Wikipedia, as a senator he "created and introduced" the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991-also known as the Gore Bill. That same year, he wrote an article for Scientific American titled, "An Infrastructure For The Global Village" from which the phrase "information superhighway" came.

The Gore Bill led to the National Research and Education Network and National Information Infrastructure. From there the Internet began to take shape and gain momentum quickly.

Without the legislation that Gore solicited early on, the Internet may not have advanced to the point where it is today.

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