Talk:Al Gore and information technology/quotes

Because this is such a heated controversy between Gore supporters (liberal) and Gore opponents (conservative), I thought I'd collect some quotes on a subpage before adding anything to the article. Use the handy link on the upper left to get back to the article talk page.

An article in Salon (pro-liberal?) said
 * ... the original coverage of Gore's comment by Wired News' Declan McCullagh. McCullagh's first report, while never using the word "invent," interpreted Gore's statement as an outrageously false boast (emphasis added for WP talk), and supported that view with one quotation from a conservative foundation spokesman. (That quote -- "Gore played no positive role in the decisions that led to the creation of the Internet as it now exists -- that is, in the opening of the Internet to commercial traffic" -- offers its own wildly distorted view of Internet history, narrowing its focus to "the opening of the Internet to commercial traffic" as the only significant milestone to shape today's Net.)

This runs counter to the pro-Gore view that some legislation he supported opened of the Internet to commercial traffic.

Bush
Then-candidate George W. Bush joked about Gore having "invented" the Internet being as likely as having invented the calculator. This gibe makes two points:
 * 1) the universally accepted point that no one person can take credit for inventing the calculator, which (like the airplane) enjoyed the collaboration of many people over long periods of time (see Isaac Newton's comment about "standing on the shoulders of giants")
 * 2) the debatable point that "took the initiative in creating" implies taking credit for inventing.

Columnist Declan McCullagh

 * Said that Gore took credit for the Internet, in column entitled "No Credit Where It's Due"
 * Brought up the phrase "Father of the Internet" and argued that it didn't apply to Gore

Of course, the real question is how much credit Gore was taking for creating the Internet. Did he ever call himself Father of the Internet in the sense that James Gosling became known as the Father of Java?

Five linked supercomputers

 * "In fact, as the chairman of a key science subcommittee in 1986, Gore did foster the creation of five supercomputer centers through the National Science Foundation that became the cornerstone of the Internet."

Gore's involvement vs. when the Internet was created
Clearly, then, if we take Gore literally at his word, he could not have "taken the initiative in creating the Internet." As the ARPANET moved from research to deployment, Gore was finishing college and serving in the Army in Vietnam. From 1976 to 1985, Gore served in the House of Representatives. From 1985 to 1992, he served in the Senate. The record shows that his interest in national computer networking issues became acute during his years in the Senate - when the Internet clearly was fully in operation. 

Getting government online

 * Phillip Hallam-Baker, a former member of the CERN Web development team that created the basic structure of the World Wide Web. Hallam-Baker calls the campaign to tar Gore as a delusional Internet inventor "a calculated piece of political propaganda to deny Gore credit for what is probably his biggest achievement."
 * "In the early days of the Web," says Hallam-Baker, who was there, "he was a believer, not after the fact when our success was already established -- he gave us help when it counted. He got us the funding to set up at MIT after we got kicked out of CERN for being too successful. He also personally saw to it that the entire federal government set up Web sites. Before the White House site went online, he would show the prototype to each agency director who came into his office. At the end he would click on the link to their agency site. If it returned 'Not Found' the said director got a powerful message that he better have a Web site before he next saw the veep."

Father of the Internet, Vinton Cerf

 * I'd like to clear up one little item - about the Vice President ... He really does deserve some credit for his early recognition of the importance (emphasis added for WP talk) of the Internet and the technology that makes it work. He was certainly among the first if not the first in Congress to realize how powerful the information revolution would be and both as Senator and Vice President he has been enormously helpful in supporting legislation and programs to help further develop the Internet - for example the Next Generation Internet program.

Creators give credit to Gore as a promoter

 * "Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening."