To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (19555 ) 5/20/1998 9:53:00 PM From: Daniel Schuh Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Left and Right With Bill Gates nytimes.com By far the most startling antagonist of Microsoft is Robert Bork. This former judge and law professor was once known as an apostle of the Chicago School, which questioned whether there are any economic benefits to antitrust enforcement. Both Microsoft and its rivals wooed Bork, but the critics won him over. He has asserted that Microsoft violated the law by using its dominant position in computer operating systems to promote its own browser over that of its rival, Netscape, a view held by the Clinton Justice Department. Take, for example, the unexpected Republican support for Attorney General Janet Reno's antitrust activism. Her hand has been strengthened immeasurably because of the backing she commands from Orrin Hatch, one of the chief critics of her chronic passivity on campaign finance. Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, represents a state with at least one big software rival of Microsoft. Reno has also benefited by the fact that Trent Lott uttered not a peep of criticism about the Clinton Administration's handling of Microsoft, and Newt Gingrich sounded downright approving. The company's G.O.P. defenders are much less weighty figures such as its home-state Senator, Slade Gorton, and that ever-grumpy ideologue, Dick Armey.
