Anti-trust a la Bush

The second paragraph is the killer. I wonder what made the West Virginia case so egregious that the government had to step in.

Lichtblau, Eric. 2008. “Antitrust Document Exposes Rift.” New York Times (8 September): p. C 1.

The Justice Department laid out a broad policy on antitrust enforcement on Monday that drew an unusually sharp rebuke from three federal trade commissioners, who said it would protect monopolies from prosecution.

A 215-page report from the Justice Department, coming after nearly a year of public hearings, was originally meant to lay out a governmentwide approach to combating anticompetitive business practices. Instead, it exposed a rift between the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission over whether the government was protecting consumers or big businesses.

In nearly eight years under the Bush administration, the Justice Department has brought one case against a business on anticompetitive grounds, seeking to block the purchase of a West Virginia newspaper by a competitor.