Al Gore had just five words to say at the Webby Awards held in New York this week: "Please don't recount this vote."

The quip won laughs, even if he was simply following the rules: The Webby's only permits winners five words in their acceptance speeches.

The Webby Awards has been attempting an evolution of relevance out of the dot-com period in which it was born and this year featured celebrity names outside of the Internet -- but that's not the point. The Webby's are still a geek's paradise, and so it was most fitting that Al Gore, whom everyone knows once implied that he created the Internet, was on hand to make jokes everyone could find funny.

Otherwise, Al Gore has become increasingly unfunny. Again. Like the Webby's, he is similarly stuck in the past, the punchline of jokes about hanging chads and Florida retirees.

Unlike other failed presidential hopefuls, Gore has not been able to move past his past. As you look around at other incidents, like major corporations hitting some nasty snags, it seems a lot of entities are having trouble getting past their pasts. Is this the end of good old American reinvention and change?