When elipses appear in the quotes below, it's where I've removed an example used by the conservatives of a Gore lie or misrepresentation. The excised items could be genuine Gore lies, but everything surrounding them is definitely phony (as documented in the previous article), and, without further documentation to confirm their authenticity, it would be irresponsible either to use, as a source, the columnists who are willing to lie so boldly, or to repeat what may be further fabrications without at least examining their accuracy. I've added additional notes to most of these comments, but this article is meant to be read after the first; depends, in fact, on the reader having read the first.
Linda Bowles, 10/3/00
"At a union conference, Algore[1] told the Teamsters that 'Remember the Union Label' was 'one of the lullabies' his parents sang to him as a child. In fact, the song was not written until 1975 -- when little Algore was 27 years old. Algore claimed to have been involved in setting up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The truth is that the oil reserve was set up and funded in 1975, two years before Algore became a member of Congress."
Later on, there's this:
"There is no 'maybe' about the pattern of fabrications, exaggerations, and flip-flops. Algore claimed that he invented the Internet, that he and Tipper were the models for Erich Segal's novel, 'Love Story,'... that in Vietnam he spent most of his time in the field and was fired upon by the enemy,... that his sister was the very first volunteer for the Peace Corps,[2]... that he did not know he was in the middle of a fund raiser at the California Buddhist Temple in 1996, that he did not know his fund-raising phone calls from his government office were illegal, and that he did not know anything about the millions of dollars illegally funneled into the Democrat Party by agents of communist China.[3]
"All of these claims and boasts are documentably false, and some of them are arguably delusional. We have in clear view the picture of a deeply insecure man, uncomfortable with himself, and too fragile to hear or tell the hard truth--a man who phonies up the past to appear smarter, more worthy, and more substantive than he really is.
"Algore's propensity to mangle the truth appears compulsive in that, although warned about it by his advisers, he apparently cannot stop himself. Is this a man we can trust to keep his word, honor his promises, and restore our faith in government?"
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NOTES ON BOWLES:
[1] "Algore" is meant to be a parody on "Igor"--it comes from right-wing radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, a man who insists he never calls anyone childish names, and that only liberals do so.
[2] To see this story dissected, look here http://www.dailyhowler.com/h101000_1.shtml
[3] This number--"millions of dollars"--is a fiction of Bowles for which no documentation exists at all.
Mona Charen 10/6/00
"Everyone knows that Al Gore's biggest problem is a tendency to lie, which is why his resort to lies in the first debate is almost creepy. For several weeks, the news has been full of Gore's little exaggerations and fibs. One would have thought that if he had one goal, it would be to avoid any additional lies. But he couldn't resist."
Later:
"Al Gore is the Zelig of modern politics, painting himself into pictures of which he was no part. He invented the Internet,... discovered Love Canal, faced danger in Vietnam, rocked to sleep as a babe to music written when he was an adult and authored the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.[1] He now claims that he legitimately read in a newspaper article that he was the model for Erich Segal's tearjerker 'Love Story.' Baloney. People know this sort of thing. Segal has even gone public saying that Gore was not his model."
And more:
"...he got caught when he used little Kailey Ellis as the symbol of overcrowded, underfunded public schools. The day he visited, Kailey had to stand in science class for a few minutes until someone got her a lab chair. Gore did not inquire about the facts. He grabbed Kailey's name and ran.[2] Later, we learned that it was one of the first days of school in one of the wealthiest districts in Florida, that Kailey was standing because they were unloading $100,000.00 worth of new equipment and that she was given a desk the following day.[3]
"Here's a deal that might satisfy voters and might prove even more remunerative than Mr. Bush's tax cut plan--have Mr. Gore give taxpayers back one dollar for every lie he tells."
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NOTES ON CHAREN
[1] Charen get the original comment right--Gore was talking about the extension of EITC, and not the original act, as the corporate press and an army of lying conservatives have claimed. She's lying herself, though, in ranking this as a Gore lie, because Gore did, indeed, author that extension. This is the sort of thing that happens when idiots get the talking points mixed up.
[2] This account bears no resemblance to reality at all. Gore didn't visit the school--the issue was brought to Gore's attention by Kailey Ellis' father, Randy, who was doing some catering work for the Gore campaign. He delivered a letter about the situation, along with an article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, to Air Force Two. These were the sources of Gore's remarks. "The day he [Gore] visited, Kailey had to stand in science class for a few minutes until someone got her a lab chair." This is a complete lie by Charen in every aspect. Kailey had to stand in class because there is a very severe overcrowding problem in that school district, brought on by a budget crunch. She only eventually got a desk because another student voluntarily gave his up for her--and he had to go without one himself for another week after that.
[3] The source for this story was a single comment made by the school's principal, Dan Kennedy, when he was playing CYA games in the press. As Salon noted, when the Wall Street Journal offered Kennedy a slot to trash Gore, "conspicuously absent was any mention of six-figure, unpacked equipment clogging up classrooms as the reason for the overcrowding."
(The Salon article is here: http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/11/gore/index.html)
Ann Coulter, 10/11/00
"This is the guy who said he invented the Internet, claimed to be the inspiration for 'Love Story,' and said he discovered Love Canal (it had already been declared a national disaster area by President Carter). He says... his mother sang him union lullabies that didn't exist until he was 27 years old."
Later:
"Gore's endless boasts of his false heroic feats had already gotten to the point of pathology. Making stuff up is surely one of Gore's leading negatives in this campaign."
Later still:
"...in the Taking Credit for Things Yet to Come category, Gore told the sad story of little Kaylie Ellis and her poverty-stricken Sarasota, Fla., high school, where they 'can't squeeze another desk in for (Kaylie), so she has to stand during class.' But never fear! Gore would come to Kaylie's rescue as president: 'I want the federal government ... to make improvement of our schools the No. 1 priority so Kaylie will have a desk and can sit down in a classroom ...'
"But then the day after the debate, the principal of Kaylie's high school indignantly took to the airwaves to say that the classroom seemed crowded that day only because it was brimming over with $100,000 worth of computer equipment. [1] The school has plenty of room, plenty of desks, [2] and--evidently--plenty of computer equipment."
Later still:
"Yeah, of course Gore doesn't want to focus on scandals. Unlike the Internet, he actually does have something to do with those. This is like Don Corleone complaining to the prosecutor that--as a point of etiquette--he just doesn't think they should be discussing any crimes either of them may have committed. When did it become a principled stance for crooks to take crime off the table?
"Nixon didn't want to talk about the Watergate in the 1972 election. Slobodan Milosevic probably got a little sick of all the jawboning about scandals in the recent Yugoslavian election. King George didn't want to talk about taxes."
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NOTES ON COULTER
[1] This is a misrepresentation by Coulter, and, though minor, she repeats it twice--Kennedy said there was "probably about $100,000 worth of new lab equipment... waiting to be unpacked." There was no mention of computer equipment.
[2] The school has neither of these; this is, quite simply, a lie. The school is facing large-scale overcrowding because of a $17 million budgetary shortfall. There were, among other things, 100 teachers fired as a result of this. As for space, the original Sarasota Herald-Tribune quoted Kailey Ellis' biology teacher Spike Black: "All day, at least two, three or four kids are without a chair. We could get more chairs but there's no place to put them."
Tony Snow, 9/22/00
"He brags that his sister was the 'very first' Peace Corps volunteer. False.... He claimed to 'find' Love Canal. He didn't. He said he and Tipper were the inspiration behind 'Love Story.' Author Erich Segal has swatted that one away. Furthermore, why not claim to have inspired a good movie--or at least one in which your beloved doesn't die???"
Oliver North, 10/9/00
"Whatever Al Gore's physical maladies, they pale by comparison to his biggest problem: He just can't tell the truth. The man he wants to replace apparently had (or has?) a compulsive desire for women other than his wife. And Al Gore evidently has an equally compulsive desire to embellish his curriculum vitae, to create fabrications where facts would do, and to misrepresent matters that are so easily disproved, by even the most cursory examination of the facts." [1]
Later:
"Gore went on to tell a moving, but bogus story about a schoolgirl in Sarasota, Fla.--Kaylie Ellis--whose classroom was so crowded that, 'They can't squeeze another desk in for her, so she has to stand during class," Gore asserted. That, too, was a lie. [2] The truth came out the next morning when the principal of Sarasota High School, Dan Kennedy, told Florida's WFLA radio that Prince Albert the Fabricator had been 'misleading' because 'we don't have any students standing in class, and we have more than enough desks for all our students.' In fact, the room had been crowded because it was being refurbished and was packed with $100,000 worth of yet-to-be-unpacked new equipment."
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NOTES ON NORTH
[1] This is a common theme in MOAGTL--the attempt to tie Gore into the sex scandals of the Clinton administration. This can't be done literally, so it's always done by insinuation, as it was by George Bush in the first presidential "debate" a few weeks ago.
[2] Something should be mentioned here about the matter of context. Gore was given a letter and a newspaper article on this situation, and he was only repeating, acurately, what they said. Even if it had turned out not to be true, it wouldn't be legitimate to call this a "lie." At worst, it would have been a cause to complain about sloppy research on his part.
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