Actual quote from a March 1999 interview with Al Gore, "Well, I will -- I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins, and it'll be comprehensive and sweeping, and I hope that it'll be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be. But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

FACT: The technology for the internet was originally created by the Dept of Defense in the 70's for military purposes only. The technology has been, of course, eclipsed in recent years, but the original concept of loosely networked computers is the same.

FACT: Al Gore never said he "invented" the internet.

FACT: Al Gore consistently supported legislation to broaden the use of telecommunications and computer equipment starting in the 70's, and even worked to get computers into Congress itself. Most of his legislation did not pass.

FACT: Despite years and even decades of technological research, the internet, as we think of it today, was launched in 1983. It was the realm of obscure internet newsgroups and their geeky college users (remember when you had to have a USENET client? and strap the phone handset into a big modem cradle?)

FACT: Gore sponsored the 1986 Supercomputer Network Study Act, designed to figure out how to get all this new technology working
to increase public information needs.

FACT: Senator Gore wrote and sponsored the 1991 High Performance Computing and Communications Act (introduce originally in 1988) which provided over $1 billion in research & development grants to technology companies like MCI, plus universities, schools, and other public groups. Funding for Mosaic, the original web browser standard, came from this Act. That investment made propietary online services like Prodigy, Compuserve and Delphi obsolete, and moved the internet into a common format widely accessible to the public. The vision: provide for teleconferencing, link your computer to millions of computers around the country, give you access to huge 'digital libraries' of information, and deliver services we cannot yet imagine."

Did Gore "invent" the internet? No. And he didn't say he did. But if it weren't for him (or some other guy down the line who did the same thing), the internet would probably still be an obscure military project.

It was a stupid way to phrase it, but he does deserve a lot of the credit (or blame) for bring the internet into private homes and it's huge success today.