Al Gore

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Vice President of the United States 1993-2001 during Bill Clinton's presidency.

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. is the son of veteran Democratic Senator Albert Gore, Sr. of Tennessee. Gore, Sr. grew up in rural Tennessee, but his son was raised in a hotel in Washington, D.C. and spent summers in Carthage Tennessee.

Gore, Jr. could have used his father's connections to avoid serving in Vietnam. He did avoid combat, which resulted in allegations that his famous father's influence had kept him away from the front lines. He worked in Vietnam as an Army war correspondent and was not always out of danger, however. He later spent several years as a reporter in his native Tennessee.

He was a Senator from Tennessee before he became Vice President.

He wrote an environmental conservation book called Earth in the Balance.

He ran for the office of President of the United States and was defeated by George W. Bush in 2000. See also: US Election 2000

He never claimed to have invented the Internet. The exact quote from a CNN interview: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

This statement referred to his introduction around 1990 of a bill designed to fund the creation of an "information systems highway" for education. The bill itself, and the phrase "information superhighway" in particular, were definite factors in advancing the growth of the Internet. Gore, however, never managed during the long campaign to make this point clear, even when directly teased by George W. Bush during their debates.

Critics point out that the U.S. [Defense Department]] actually created the Internet, originally called ARPANET, in 1969. Gore, only 21 years old at the time, was eight years away from being elected to Congress.

Other criticisms

  • During the 2000 presidential campaign, Gore was attacked by environmentalists for owning (indirectly through his father's estate) several thousand shares of Occidental Petroleum Corporation. Occidental Petroleum angered environmentalists by trying to open a new oil/gas drilling field in Colombia.
  • Gore ran as a traditional Democratic liberal and made little effort to ally himself with the successful centrist positions of the Clinton Administration, so eager was he to dissociate himself from Clinton's scandals.
  • Gore was considered to have a stiff and contrived personality that set people's teeth on edge.

Positive points

  • Gore had a much more explicit platform and set of programs and was much more forthcoming about his plans than was his opponent.

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