Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

The facts I use are Gore's own statements.

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

Lash, It's because you interpret that statement to mean "I created the internet." There's a big difference when he said, "I took the initiative in creating..." You must learn to interpret the English language correctly. When you are alone in the misinterpretation, don't you begin to question yourself? But I repeat myself.

You didn't quite use his own statements Lash. You commented on them by changing the meaning.

CI-- I know the English language quite well, thank you.

I also know when someone is CONSTANTLY attempting to take credit for a myriad of spectacular feats, they bear watching. Are they trying to take credit? Of things they legitimately did? How many? How often?

What does his statement mean to you?

I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

What about his claim about being the prototype for Love Story?

What about what he said about Love Canal?

Not the spin version--but his exact words. Don't you think he's a little quick to take credit for a few too many miraculous things?

Why do you think Dems and Republicans and journos alike came to the same conclusion about him? Were they ALL wrong?

And, you and Al are the only ones who are right?

"Initiative" means "taking the first step or move." But then, you know all that.

That's one of several claims he made. If it had been the only one, people would likely not have made so much of it.

He had a widely known penchant for making wild claims. That is why the journalists started jumping on all of them.

Did I say anything about his other claims? Quit putting words into my mouth. I challenged your use of Gore's statement about "inventing the internet." That's all! Nothing more, nothing less.

I put words in your mouth?

For other Gore Fence Sitters:

With a focus on Gore's exaggerations, Bush gets away with murder
By PHILIP GAILEY

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 15, 2000


Al Gore was supposed to make short work of George W. Bush in a series of three presidential debates. But after two debates, it is Bush who has emerged with the political advantage from these encounters, even though Gore clearly outscored him on points and demonstrated a superior grasp of foreign and domestic issues. In the first debate, Bush was shaky and shallow on foreign policy, but fortunately for the Texas governor, Gore came across as an overbearing bully, emitting audible sighs and rolling his eyes as if he were sharing the stage with the class dunce. In Winston-Salem on Wednesday night, Gore tried too hard to compensate. His performance was lackluster and tentative as he tried to control his body language and strike a civil tone. The bar for Bush was set so low that all he had to do was look confident and relaxed, which he did.

As Ronald Reagan demonstrated in his debates with President Jimmy Carter, the race is not always to the swiftest or the brightest. There is something strange and mysterious about the ways voters size up presidential candidates. It is an alchemy that often has more to do with personality and style than issues and substance. That is Gore's problem. Some reporters who have covered Gore over the years use the word "weird" to describe him. At his worst, he can come across as arrogant and evasive, as a man who keeps re-inventing himself, as a shameless panderer (the Elian Gonzalez case) and, according to his harshest critics, as a man who cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

Clearly, for whatever reason, even many of the voters who share Gore's positions on issues are struggling to increase their comfort level with the man. They wonder if he would represent four more years of what they like least about the Clinton administration -- a president who, when cornered, argues over what the meaning of "is" is. Gore's credibility problem may finally be catching up with him. In the second presidential debate, Gore admitted that he sometimes gets his facts wrong and promised that as president he would always try to get the "big things" right.

At the moment, it's the little things that are stalling Gore's campaign. His credibility has become an issue because he has a history of exaggerating or embellishing his own political accomplishments, denying the undenial and grossly misrepresenting his opponent's positions. In the heat of last winter's primary campaign, Bill Bradley, who unsuccessfully challenged Gore for the Democratic presidential nomination, aimed this shot straight at Gore: "Why should we believe that you will tell the truth as president if you don't tell the truth as a candidate?"

Much to the dismay of the vice president's own supporters, his behavior in the general election campaign has given Republicans an opening to reprise Bradley's charge. At least Bill Clinton -- an "unusually good liar," Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., called him -- lied to protect his political behind, whether the issue was draft-dodging or Monica Lewinsky. Gore, however, has developed a reputation for fibbing on trivial matters when it's not necessary.

With all the attention focused on Gore's credibility, Bush is getting away with murder. The Texas governor continues to mislead the public and misrepresent his $1.3-billion tax cut plan. In explaining his budget, Bush's math is worst than "fuzzy." It is bogus. Bush keeps telling whoppers while Gore is portrayed by Republicans as a pathological liar. Perhaps the lesson here is that in politics, if you are going to play loose with the truth, it's better to tell big lies than little ones.

It's one thing to make factual mistakes, as most candidates are prone to do. It's something else to consistently misrepresent, exaggerate or embellish one's own record or to disregard the truth. In Gore's case, even his own supporters ask themselves why he does it.

Why, for example, did he deny in the first presidential debate that he had ever questioned Bush's qualifications to be president when he had done just that in a recent interview with the NEW YORK TIMES? Or why did he claim to have been one of the architects of the Earned Income Tax Credit that was enacted in 1975, three years before Gore was elected to Congress? And why would Gore say he co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill when he left the Senate to become vice president before Feingold even took his oath as a senator? In a recent interview with the NEW YORK TIMES, Gore said PBS has never invited him to appear on a documentary about presidential debates. But PBS officials said they had personally asked Gore to be interviewed for the documentary, and Gore's own spokesman confirmed that the vice president had rejected the offer.

Voters are left to wonder if this pattern is indicative of a deeper character flaw in Gore, one that would be magnified in the White House. They should be just as troubled by Bush's lack of honesty about his tax-cut plan and budget proposals.

Gore appears to be in another slump, but this is still his election to lose. He continues to lead Bush in key battleground states, and the polls suggest that most voters favor his positions on the issues they care about. In the campaign's final stretch, Gore needs to raise the public's comfort level with the idea of his being in the Oval Office for the next four years. Tuesday night's final debate in St. Louis may be Gore's last chance to reassure voters that if he is elected, it won't be necessary to add another sentence to the presidential oath of office that reads ". . . and I promise to tell the truth, so help me God."

The correct story can be found several places. Here's one...
http://www.gargaro.com/notgore.html



This site includes the ACTUAL quote and shows the corrections made by NYTimes and Washington Post. Too little, too late. By then the GOP had CHANGED the quote and claimed it was the real thing. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/020100a.html

It is pretty clear that "that one" refers to Toone, Tennessee in the actual quote.

Thank you, parados, for making lash look a fool. Can't believe much of what she/he claims in her posts. She shoots from the hip like Bushie cowboy which later ends up biting them in the butt - or shoots their own foot. LOL

So, you would have everyone believe that this highly publicised pattern of "mis-statements" by and "about" Gore was just a freak accident, which the media, Democrats and Republicans were ALL wrong about...?

That it couldn't possibly be GORE who was intentionally wording things to make it appear that HE was in the right place at the right time, all the time...?

No it was a concerted effort by a few of taking quotes out of context and people not bothering to check them before they ran with it. The ACTUAL words don't show what you claimed Lash. You repeat the MYTH and then wonder why we don't believe it like you do.

He never said he was in the right place at the right time, all the time.

But he WAS in the right place at the right time several times. And he has the right to point that out in his campaign, don't you agree?

CI-- Thanks for making yourself look like such a fool, but you can stop anytime.

Anytime now.

parados-- Everyone has their spin, and like the dutiful liberal that you are, I can't fault you for bringing their spin in. Truthfully, after reading ALL the damning material on Gore, I feel a little sorry for him.

But, not so sorry that I'll pretend he's not considered crazy because all of his nutty proclamations.

See:

Controversial Al Gore quotes

During the October 3, 2000 Presidential debate, Gore was speaking of Medicare prescription reform. He referred to Winifred Skinner, 79, "In order to pay for her prescription drug benefits, she has to go out seven days a week, several hours a day, picking up can. She came all the way from Iowa in a Winnebago with her poodle in order to attend here tonight." The Gore campaign did not disclose until later that they paid her expenses for the visit including gas and vehicle rental. Skinner's son stated that she had declined his offers to help her financially. (Washington Post, October 5, 2000, page A20)

Which made it a lie.

"I'm very familiar with the importance of dairy farming in Wisconsin. I've spent the night on a dairy farm here in Wisconsin. If I'm entrusted with the presidency, you'll have someone who is very familiar with what the Wisconsin dairy industry is all about." The Atlanta Constitution Journal (Sunday, June 18, 2000) opined that the speech was poorly worded and that spending one night on a dairy farm was not evidence of expertise. The Journal noted that it has no actual knowledge of Gore's familiarity with dairy farming.

So, it may have been a Bushism...or a lie.


"Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco. I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it. I've hoed it. I've dug in it. I've sprayed it, I've chopped it, I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it." Al Gore defending tobacco farmers while campaigning in Southern tobacco states in 1988.

In a 1996 speech, Gore referred to his sister's painful death from lung cancer. Later Gore apologized for profiting from his family tobacco farm and accepting campaign contributions from tobacco companies in the years following his sister's death. "Sometimes, you never fully face up to things that you ought to face up to." Gore professed. Gore became a leading advocate for the Clinton administration's aggressive anti-smoking campaign. (San Francisco Chronicle, August 30, 1996)

He used tobacco when it got him votes and repented when it was unpopular. (But, they all do that. That's not crazy, that politics as usual.)


On July 16, 2000 during a Meet the Press interview, Al Gore was asked if he would be in favor of postponing the execution of a pregnant woman. Gore's response was "I'd have to think about it".
Meet the Press's Tim Russert: "Right now there's legislation which says that a woman on death row, if she's pregnant, she should not be executed. Do you support that?"
Al Gore: "I don't what you're talking about."
Russert: "It's a federal statue on the books that if a woman is pregnant and she's on death row, she should not be executed."
Gore: "Well, I don't know what the circumstances would be in that situation. I would--you know, it's an interesting fact situation. I'd want to think about it".
Some viewed Gore's lack of any immediate response to the question as lacking conviction. Some believed Gore was prudent in not immediately answering a policy question he had not previously evaluated in depth. Others believed that Gore was wary of being drawn unprepared into a simultaneous debate about the death penalty and abortion.

Sounds crazy, but maybe just dodging.

In a CNN interview on March 9, 1999, Gore told Wolf Blitzer: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

This quote led to Al Gore being branded with the sarcastic moniker "The inventor of the Internet." While Gore's supporters often argue that Gore helped to pass legislation in the 1980's that was instrumental to the development on the Internet, critics point out that the Internet has its roots in the ARPANET which was created in the 1960's and that Gore's contributions in the 1980's probably fall well short of "creation." (See History of the Internet)

On November 30, 1999 Gore described to a New Hampshire high school his reaction to a high school girl coming to him about her family's poisoned well in the late 1970's: "I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing. 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."
It has been hotly debated whether or not Gore was trying to take credit for discovering the toxic waste problem at Love Canal. The quote has been repeated with ", and Toone, Tennessee -- that was the one that you didn't hear of. But" replaced by an ellipsis (...) which subtly alters the quotes meaning.

I argue that it doesn't change the meaning. Means the SAME THING.

Gore was quoted in the New York Times December 14, 1997 edition as saying: "[Erich] Segal had told some reporters in Tennessee that [ Love Story ] was based on him and Tipper."
Though Segal later said that this was not the case, Gore's quote is technically accurate since Gore was referring to what a reporter had said and a report in the Tennessean had erroneously reported that it was based on Gore and Tipper. However, the statement was still controversial as many people felt that Gore should have known that the report was inaccurate. There was in fact some truth to the claim: The male lead in Love Story, Oliver Barrett IV, was based on Al Gore and his college roommate actor, Tommy Lee Jones. However, the story was not in anyway based on Gore's relationship with Tipper.
--------
Lots of smoke around Albert.

Lash,

You are the only one spinning here. Diagram the sentence as it was ACTUALLY spoken by Al. There is no way you can do it correctly and claim "That was the one" refers to Love Canal. "That was the one" very specifically refers to Toone. It is the ONLY way to diagram it. Then that means "that was the one" in the next sentence ALSO refers to Toone.


The debate comes from a quote that leaves out a relevant part of the sentence. When it comes to the actual quote I guarantee you won't find a single English teacher anywhere that claims it logically refers to Love Canal.

Now you trot out statements similar to ones made by each and every politician. I can find similar ones made by GW but you wouldn't believe he was nuts. Sorry Lash, you are pulling your usual stuff. One would think you would learn to not build sand castles when you are naked. It only means they come down around your ears and other body parts.

parados--

What you don't seem to realize is one doesn't need to mistake Toone for Love Canal to se that he's taking credit for the investigations that LED to Love Canal.

Doesn't the pattern of Gore claiming being at the helm of so many events in history give you a bit of pause?

Please cease attempting to get me naked at the beach. Vaginal irritant!

Gore should take credit for the CONGRESSIONAL investigations. Now you are just ignoring history as it exists. Gore chaired the hearings on dumping of toxic waste. He co-authored the superfund legislation. In case you didn't realize it Love Canal is a superfund site. (I think they just took it off last year.)

Did she come in a Winnebago?
Is there any reason to believe she didn't take her poodle?

So where is the untruth?

What is your problem with this statement?