In the California Governor’s race candidate Bill Simon says in one of his ads that he was a “federal prosecutor under Rudi Giuliani.” I have three questions regarding this claim:
Okay, I may have loaded question 3. Make it: Is Bill Simon exaggerating his connection with Rudi Giuliani by saying that he served “under” him? It has always been my understanding that federal prosecutors answer to the Justice Department, and not to any city official. Of course, Simon want’s to play up his association with the now “perfect” former mayor. But isn’t claiming to have worked “under” him disingenuous?
Thanks, pravnik for clearing that up for me. I was hoping to catch Simon in a lie, but I’ve been foiled…this time. Curses!
My pleasure, Desert Geezer.
I’m not so sure about his claim to the current land speed record, though…and what’s this about how it was him who turned dogs and cats against each other? 
At least he isn’t claiming to have invented the internet.
Puh-leeze! It’s off topic…and it ain’t true. Al Gore said something like he had recognized the value of the Internet early and encouraged it. Unless you can provide a cite with the exact quote (from a reputable sourse), please drop that canard. Gawd! Some asshole makes up a story and it takes on a life of its own.
DesertGeezer: FYI, the full quote is “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
Transcript of CNN Interview.
I’m not sure claiming to have “created” the Internet is really any better than having claimed to have “invented” it.
hijack
Couldn’t this be merely a mistake in word choice? I think he meant that he had “pushed” some initiatives that supported the internet. Do you think he was claiming to have invented the internet? I think it was a huge mistake that everyone seems to have fun with.
It’s probably unlikely that a politician would lie about something that’s as easy to check as where he worked.
Zev Steinhardt
That’s the way I always took it, too, but people who want to put Gore down have jumped on those poorly chosen words and scourged him with them. Truth has nothing to do with it. Out of that entire interview, his enemies seized those eight words, because they couldn’t find anything more substantial to attack him with. That’s what I hate about sound bites. Unless, of course, they’re used against a candidate I don’t like. 
Al Gore did sponsor the funding legislation for the internet in the 1980s before it was called the internet. He is credited by the people who “invented” the internet with being the number one Washington politician interested and helping with what they were doing.
When conservatives insist on saying he “invented” the internet, they are insisting on a lie, and every time the press does not call attention to this lie, which is now well know, but often unchallenged, they are demonstrating their bias against Al Gore and for conservative liars in general.
While there have been a number of issues on which I have disagreed with I am Sparticus, this is one in which he is 100% right. Both Gore and numerous people affiliated with him have made it totally clear that in making that claim to have “taken the initiative in creating the Internet,” he was referring to his early sponsorship of legislation that provided funding for joining ARPANET and UUNET (or its predecessor) to produce the earliest form of what we now call the Internet. And that he did in fact sponsor and promote that legislation, recognizing the advantage of quick transfer of computerized information very early on.
However, this should not stand in the way of any Republican with an axe to grind perpetuating the misstatement.
That was a whoosh I felt going over my head, right Poly? 