Can we please retire this joke?

December 26, 2006

The AP ran a story over the weekend about the ways in which presidential hopefuls are turning to the Internet to boost their chances. It’s a fairly routine piece, but it leads with a joke that has long since outlived its usefulness.

Al Gore claimed he invented it. John McCain predicted it would revolutionize political campaigning. Howard Dean made it pay — and then some.

Ah, the Internet.

Ah, the six-year-old Gore joke. What would an article about politics and the web be without it?

In a word, better. Look, this was debunked years ago. Gore didn’t claim to invent it; he actually did take the lead congressional role in developing the Internet as we know it today; and media coverage of the claim has always been ridiculous.

And yet, he we are, six years later, and the AP is still going for the cheap laugh. Isn’t it time to retire this joke once and for all?

Maybe AP is counting on Gore running again in 2008. Wouldn’t want to let the general public forget the original erroneous stereotyping, would they?

  • When myth and reality collide, print the myth. Better yet print them both because, as we all know, the actual “truth” must be somewhere in between teh two.

  • I’ve a much better idea—let’s retire the dinosaur known as the Associated Press. When a major, comprehensive media outlet becomes little more than a shill for the neoconservative movement, then maybe—just maybe, mind you—it’s time for a “journalistic extinction event.”

    Poor AP. Too “dumb-as-a-post” to know that it’s outlived its usefulness….

  • “Conventional Wisdom” needs to be continually reinforced, more so when it’s a lie.
    Please remember:
    Corporate. Media. Is. Republican.
    We fight a continual uphill battle against this massive, yet in many ways subtle, propaganda machine.

  • “Corporate. Media. Is. Republican.” – BuzzMon

    Backwards!

    “Republican’ts exist to serve the interests of Corporations which own the Media”

  • Nice to see the WaMo give my hometown fishwrap its due:

    A Dec. 9 editorial in Pennsylvania’s the Lancaster New Era even published the polished misquote that the Republican National Committee had stuck in a press release: “I was the one who started it all.” The New Era then went on to psychoanalyze Gore. “Maybe the lying is a symptom of a more deeply-rooted problem: Al Gore doesn’t know who he is,” the editorial stated. “The vice president is a serial prevaricator.”

  • In the last couple weeks, I have noted many humorous disparagements of Gore on SNL,Mad TV, Leno. Kind of curious since he has not been in the news recently & is not yet a candidate.

    An recent article in HuffPo about global warming and indirectly Gore generated a load of comments rabidly in support of a Gore candidacy. Have not heard such enthusiasm for a candidate since the 60s.

  • “How can voters have any hope of expressing an informed judgment when the media intervenes to transform one of the principal candidates—an individual who, by all accounts, is a well-qualified public official and a decent family man—into a national laughingstock? What hope does a candidate have when the media can misrepresent his words so thoroughly that they become an argument for his mental instability—and all the candidate feels he can do about the misquotes is to apologize?”

    Even worse is when the media fails to express any insight into the statements of a politician(s) who are clearly and truly lying, consistently lying over darn near every issue they pursue, like our President, Vice President and darn near everyone in the current administration. The harm done to one candidate by the media’s nonsense in the former is sad, but the harm done to the country (and the world) by the media’s complicity in the latter is tragic and criminal.

  • I know that congress has a huge list of grievances to address in the coming session. It would be great if the list was prioritized so that near the top, the idea of breaking up the corporate media monopolies was reborn. Better yet, foreign ownership (Rupert} of our media should be condemned allowing for a great loud circus of hearings that just might scare John Q. Public. The nonsense has got to stop.

  • We still have to deal with bad Clinton jokes, so I don’t expect this bad Gore joke to go away anytime soon.

  • Sad that these “jokes” have invaded the lexicon and will not easily disappear. I remember when that was all you heard about Gore but also (in the dim recesses of my mind) that it was not true/accurate. It’s ironic that the woman who actually did first report about Love Canal was confused about Gore’s (inaccurately reported) statements but then basically said that Gore got it mostly right in that he tried and actually did something about it when so many others did not. Sadder yet that his legacy with respect to Love Canal (at least as perceived by many) is that he egotistically got involved for personal gain when he actually took a stand on an important environmental issue.

    Also amazing is that he was the basis (along with TLJ) for the Love Story character. How is it possible to lie about someone by calling them a liar? Oh, sorry. You just have to be a rightwinger.

  • Good Night and Good Luck.

    “Nothing but a box of lights and wires.”

    The greatest potential educational device of all time reduced to the greatest propaganda tool of all time. Tass & Goebbels had nothing on our corporate media monsters.

    Long live the free internet. I hope!

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