.comment: Judge Robert Bork on the Microsoft Settlement
A Leading Legal Thinker Weighs In
Dennis E. Powell
Wednesday, January 23, 2002 10:38:27 AM
Acceptance of the proposed settlement in U.S. v. Microsoft would
clear the road for the company to extend its monopoly to most if not all
aspects of computing, says Judge Robert H. Bork.
"I don't think it does anything to Microsoft," said Bork
in an interview with Linux Planet. "I think it just lets
them continue as they were before."
If that happens, he says, Microsoft's control is likely to extend
beyond the software industry, leading to monopolies in areas including
online access and the Internet.
The reality of Judge Bork is far more interesting than the
caricature scribbled by his enemies, who disagree with his "strict
constructionist" view -- shared with the Founding Fathers -- that
government is the last resort, not the first, for solutions to societal
woes.
He is known chiefly for the tremendous partisan battle that erupted
when he was nominated to the United States Supreme Court by President
Ronald Reagan, and that, too, is sad. For his experience in the law,
especially anti-trust law, is extensive, as is his scholarship. He has
served as circuit judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia (which has heard two U.S. v. Microsoft cases in the time since
he left the bench), solicitor general, and acting attorney general of
the United States, as well as 17 years as a professor at Yale Law School
and 12 years in private practice. He is a senior fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute. His books include Slouching towards Gomorrah:
Modern Liberalism and American Decline (1996), The Antitrust
Paradox: A Policy at War With Itself (second edition, 1993), and
The Tempting of America: the Political Seduction of the Law
(1989). Published in a wide variety of periodicals, and frequent network
television legal analyst, Judge Bork holds B.A. and J.D. degrees from
the University of Chicago.
Bork did work for Netscape in connection with the antitrust case and
has filed memoranda in favor of a finding against Microsoft.
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