The Bush administration is abandoning the landmark 1996 Telecommunications Act, which spawned a new era of competition in telephone service. That is the net effect of its refusal to appeal to the Supreme Court a federal court decision striking down rules that gave local phone companies access to the Baby Bells' networks. Even more disturbing, the administration pressured the Federal Communications Commission, ostensibly an independent agency, to abstain from filing its own appeal in defense of its own rules.

I find it very interesting, and also puzzling, that NYT takes such a strongly protectionist position on telecom ...