Al Gore and the Internet

Snopes.com has a very good "Flashback" write-up of the Al-Gore-Invented-the-Internet fiction.  (Here's the link to the whole write-up).  If you are informed at all, you already know that Gore never said it.  Most people who claim he said it think they are being clever or funny, and that somehow it helps prove something about their argument because Ihearditsomewhere.  In reality, it makes their ignorance brightly shine.  Conservatives whine that there are no conservative comedians.  This is a good example of why: ignorance isn't funny.  To be funny, comedy needs to have at least a kernel of truth.

The entire write-up is worth reading (it's not that long).. But this passage is a good analogy:

If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while president, "took the initiative in creating the Interstate Highway System," he would not have been the subject of dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with his Internet statement.

If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while president, "took the initiative in creating the Interstate Highway System," he would not have been the subject of dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with his Internet statement.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp#rhJcYFoBFAOXo4VH.99

If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while president, "took the initiative in creating the Interstate Highway System," he would not have been the subject of dozens and dozens of editorials lampooning him for claiming he "invented" the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with his Internet statement.
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp#rhJcYFoBFAOXo4VH.99