That was a splendid post, but I wanted to point one thing out:
We didn't make fun of him because he was stupid. We made fun of him because he was wrong.
We made fun of him because he was wrong and stupid.
The thing is, the speech sounded like it came directly from a lobbyist's press release. Okay, lots of speeches sound like that, but Stevens, in attempting to get the gist of the argument, changed things that no one who actually knew anything about the topic would ever say.
So, yes, he was wrong with what he was trying to say, as he was a mouthpiece for AT&T or some other company. He was stupid because he was speaking confidently from a position of obvious ignorance.
All this said, I was happy when Stevens lost his final campaign, but I find only sadness in his dying unnaturally. If he had lived longer, well, maybe he would have learned more about the internet and changed his position.