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Just call him "The Creator" Gore Gaffe? It Is to Laugh.By Rick Horowitz You can call it a blooper if you want to -- a blooper, a blunder, a foul-up, a lapse. Or you can call it a stroke of genius. I'm leaning toward genius myself. The alternatives are too messy to contemplate. Albert Gore, Egomaniac. Or Albert Gore, Fool. I'm talking, of course, about the Veep and the Net. You didn't realize it was his, did you? You're not alone. Here's the thing about doing interviews on TV: When the camera is on and the videotape is rolling, whatever you say is out there forever. And what Al Gore said the other day in a TV interview, and what the folks at the controls have been happy to play and replay, gave the distinct impression that Al Gore was claiming credit for creating the Internet. That's because the words he used were: "I took the initiative in creating the Internet." So you can see how people might get that impression. You can also see how people might be a little bit confused by that, since as far as they can tell, the Internet was created back in the 60s, long before Al Gore turned the Two Spot into the Head Wonk Spot, long before he served in the Senate or the House, long before he was in a position to do anything at all to make the Internet happen. Needless to say, Gore's words did not go unnoticed by the noticing class, professional and otherwise, and Republican politicians were heavily represented among the noticers. "If the vice president created the Internet," fumed House Majority Leader Dick Armey, "then I created the interstate highway system." (Hint: He didn't.) And from Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a thoroughly official-looking news release taking credit for inventing: the paper clip. (Hint: Ditto.) And so on. The Grand Old Party has been having a grand old time sticking it to Gore. It's such a relief after all those other times they were forced to ride to the rescue of their very own vice president -- one J. Danforth Quayle -- for assorted verbal tangles. Now, at last, the shoe is on the other foot -- and the foot is in someone else's mouth. What joy! What rapture! Or maybe not. Maybe they should be looking at it from Gore's point of view. This Internet flap could be just what the spin doctor ordered. Here's a guy, see, who's been a loyal vice president for six years, who is far and away the frontrunner for his party's nomination -- which should be good news, except that he looks at some of the other poll numbers and he has to cringe. It's not just that he's losing to George W. Bush and to Elizabeth Dole in the early matchups. It's the way he's losing. The voters think he's boring. They don't know a lot about his background or his experience or his policy positions, but one thing they do know -- or think they know, which is nearly as dangerous: He's boring. And boring doesn't cut it. He's tried poking fun at his stiffness, telling jokes at his own expense; that gets tired in a hurry. He's tried shouting his speeches; he sounds like a boring man shouting. He's even tried standing next to Dick Gephardt, who is not exactly Mr. Excitement himself. Al Gore can't even look un-boring standing next to Dick Gephardt! And in the midst of all this, a sudden controversy. He says something -- this Internet thing -- that strikes most folks as perfectly unbelievable. With absolute sincerity in his voice, he makes a statement he'll eventually have to explain away -- he's sorry if people got the wrong idea, it depends on your definition of "Internet," that sort of thing. Nobody thinks Al Gore is dumb; they'll think he was trying to pull a fast one, that his relationship with the truth is nothing more than a marriage of convenience. Sound like anyone else we know? Some other politician whose numbers kept climbing higher and higher the more he danced around the facts, the harder the other side pounded on him? Nobody calls Bill Clinton boring; people think he's a lovable scamp. Al Gore isn't dumb; he pays attention. You watch. Any day now: finger wagging. Posted
3/16/99. Rick created Al Gore -- pass it
on!
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