The Media likes nothing better than a good story especially if it is handed to them on a silver platter. The story of Vice President Al Gore's alleged exaggerations is just that. Sadly, the story is a lie.

In the worst tradition of partisan propaganda and disinformation, the words of Vice President Al Gore have been repeatedly misquoted, distorted, and taken out of context in order to portray him in a negative light. While his political enemies have tried everything they can to impugn Gore's reputation, the real damage has been done by some members of the Media who are either too lazy to check sources, too proud to correct their errors or too enamored with their "clever" story line to admit it's wrong.

There have been voices on the Internet and in the media who have done their homework and have spoken out as best they can against this abuse of our freedoms. They are being joined by a growing chorus of journalists, editors and other citizens who want to expose the cancerous disinformation that is eating away at our mainstream media and our body politic.

Below I have provided sources for the truth about the more widely quoted myths about Al Gore. If the phrase, "Al Gore is a liar" rings true to your ear then by all means read on because you are a victim of clever propagandists. The truth will anger you, perhaps, but it will set you free. [WF Burton 10/22/00]

Washington Monthly, TomPaine.com, Consortiumnews.com, The Guardian and MSNBC articles explaining the origin of many of the myths and the Media's role in their dissemination.

Myth: Al Gore claimed that he and his wife Tipper were the models for the novel Love Story.

Fact: Gore never made that claim. He mentioned to reporters that he read an article in The Nashville Tennessean that said Eric Segal, the novel's author, made the statement.

Fact: The Tennessean got half the story right. Segal actually said that Al Gore and his college roommate Tommy Lee Jones were the models for the male lead. Tipper was not a model for the female lead (see articles above). [More: Our current howler (part II): Love that story and The Love Story tale has been wrong for three years. So why won’t the press corps correct it?]

Myth: Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet.

Fact: Al Gore never made that claim. His actual words were "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Gore took the credit because he held the hearings, wrote and sponsored the legislation which expanded the Internet from the Arpanet of the 70's into the Internet of today. It was much the same way a politician takes credit for building a road or an airport without doing any of the physical labor.

Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, the acknowledged Fathers of the Internet, wrote,

"The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship."

Sources: The Register, Campaign Lunacy Chicago Tribune

While the Vice President may have chosen his words poorly, he was instrumental in the creation of the Internet.

Myth: Al Gore claimed to have Discovered Love Canal.

Fact: Gore was misquoted by both Katherine Q. Seelye of the New York Times and Cici Connolly of the Washington Post. Their misquote was widely disseminated by Jim Nicholson of the Republican National Committee.

Fact: Gore was speaking to a school group in New Hampshire about the importance of political participation. He mentioned a schoolgirl in Toone, TN who brought a toxic waste problem there to his attention. When he decided to hold Congressional hearings on the matter, he looked for other places with similar problems and found Love Canal. He never claimed to have found the toxic waste there.

The school group he was talking to demanded that the Washington Post retract its misquote of the Vice President. The Washington Monthly reported:

"'I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing,' Gore told the students. 'I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. Had the first hearing on that issue, and Toone, Tennessee---that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all.'

"After the hearings, Gore said, 'We passed a major national law to clean up hazardous dump sites. And we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around the country. We've still got work to do. But we made a huge difference. And it all happened because one high school student got involved.'"

The context of Gore's comment was clear. What sparked his interest in the toxic waste issue was the situation in Toone - "that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all." [More: Our current howler (part I): Making it up ]

Myth: Al Gore lied in the 1st Presidential debate when he spoke of a girl in Sarasota FL whose class had more students than chairs.

Fact: The Vice President was telling the truth. Below are links to the original story he quoted and an open letter written after the debate by the girl's father (a registered Republican):

Sources: Sarasota Herald Tribune 9/9/00, Letter from Randy Ellis

The Media feeding frenzy around the Vice President eventually got so bad that his jokes were reported as if he were making a statement of fact ( Gore made a joke to a predominantly Union audience about the song Look For The Union Label and someone quoted the transcript without noting that it was a joke) and slight misstatements were treated as bald-faced lies. The Death of Liberal Bias (Part One): Richard Berke, Lullaby Story.

Gore said in the first presidential debate that he went to Texas with the Director of FEMA, when if fact he went with the Assistant Director. In the hands of the RNC and cooperating media talking heads this became a crisis of integrity. The Soul of the Press Corps (Part One): Doyle McManus, Reliable Source?

How far will they go? Well, for almost a year a spurious list of quotes attributed to the Vice President has been circulating through chain e-mail. It has even been read over the air by Right Wing radio hosts. Most of these quotes, in fact, were originally attributed to Vice President Quayle many years ago, as a Pittsburgh Post Gazette article pointed out.

Other themes: Gore reinventing himself - Al is boring - Al lied about working on the farm.