The Many Wars of Tom Wheeler

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[Commentary] Frantically all year Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has been trying to save the Internet from President Barack Obama for the benefit (he thought) of President Obama.

His method has been pretty obvious to the naked eye: trying to rouse traditional Democratic interest groups to outflank the net-neut wing of the Obama base. In fact, it’s fair to say Wheeler’s frantic efforts came to naught when President Obama suddenly called for the sweeping “Title II” treatment that Chairman Wheeler had been quietly resisting. Nor is it any derogation of Chairman Wheeler to say he partly brought his trouble on himself, after he floated an internal draft (never released) that a media leak characterized as allowing Internet “fast lanes” (whatever that means). No two words were seemingly better calculated to stir up a ditzy segment of the Obama youth vote. But let’s have a moment of political truth. President Obama doesn’t give two hoots about Title II or fast lanes or the overheated regulatory ideas of the net-neut crowd.

President Obama has gone to that place presidents sometimes go, where America and its people and their interests are a small indistinct dot in the distance. All that matters is polls, scoring points with the base and presidential vanity.


The Many Wars of Tom Wheeler