[Am-info] query about MS "Innovations"

[Mitch Stone]

On Sunday, March 31, 2002, at 02:25 PM, Erick Andrews wrote:

>> You are not referring to me, I hope and trust. I'll just reiterate what 
>> I'
>> ve been saying for well over a year now: During the campaign, G.W. Bush
>> made his position clear on this issue. He spoke all of the code-words to
>> signal his intentions to settle this case in a manner favorable to
>> Microsoft, if elected, which is precisely what he's done.
>
> I don't doubt that at all.  Is there a "best" of pronouncements that can 
> be
> pointed to here?  If there was one explicably so, from Dubya's mouth or 
> pen,
> I'd like to reference it.

I don't have the original references close at hand, but this is what I 
wrote in a column published 11/2/00:

   After claiming he would not comment on pending cases, Governor Bush
   plowed right on to say he prefers "innovation over litigation," and
   added, "I think that some fundamental questions ought to be asked: Are
   the customers being harmed and is innovation being stifled?"

   A good question, but one a federal judge has already decided
   overwhelmingly in the government's favor. Even worse for Bush, his answer
   is a page torn right out of Microsoft's defense playbook -- and a
   miserably failed playbook at that. His statement is as a clear signal as
   one could imagine that a George W. Bush Justice Department would scuttle
   the government's case against Microsoft.

>> You may be
>> disappointed, but you should not be surprised. Nobody else is. Frankly, I
>> think you'd have to go back to William Howard Taft to find a Republican
>> president who was favorable to the enforcement of antitrust laws, and 
>> even
>> he had pulled back from the commitment of his predecessor.
>
> But Teedy [sic] Roosevelt did carry on against the monopolist barons of
> the day, right?

He was Taft's predecessor. But to correct myself, Taft was even more 
aggressive in pursuing antitrust cases than was Roosevelt; in fact the two 
men had quite a falling out over that issue, which led to Roosevelt's 
third party presidential bid, and the election of Wilson.


   Mitch Stone
   mitch@accidentalexpert.com