Let's not rush to judgment on AT&T-Time Warner merger

[Commentary] Rather than give the Department of Justice — and, assuming jurisdictional issues are resolved, perhaps even the Federal Communications Commission— an opportunity to look dispassionately at the facts of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, law and economics of the transaction, some consumer groups are going for the political jugular. But then again, who can blame them?

As FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has actively encouraged such conduct by steadfastly choosing to ignore substance and view every major policy initiative from network neutrality to set-top boxes to municipal broadband through a political lens, this playbook appears to be quite successful. Still, ignorant sophistry is no excuse for ill-formed policymaking. Let's just hope that the new administration — regardless of party — rejects the politicized approach to telecom policy favored by the Obama Administration and returns to first principles: an honest, rigorous and dispassionate review of the transaction.

[Spiwak is the president of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]