Hundt, Kennard Suffer From McCain Amnesia

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairmen Reed Hundt and Bill Kennard are supporters of Sen Barack Obama. On June 10, Hundt asked, “Can you name one merger, since 1996, that John McCain has opposed?” But, in April 1999, Reuters reported that McCain slammed AT&T’s $58 billion takeover of cable operator MediaOne Group. “This is the obvious result of a [telecommunications] act that was designed to protect special interests and neglected the consumer,” McCain told the news service. “If you can't compete, buy your opponents." Meanwhile, BusinessWeek reported Hundt hailed AT&T’s second big cable company purchase in less than a year. On June 25, Kennard said, "I'm hard-pressed to think of one significant legislative achievement in the [telecom] sector that was championed and was implemented by John McCain during his leadership on the Commerce Committee, because there isn't." But what of Sen McCain's role in passing the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999. That law allowed DirecTV and Dish Network to offer local TV signals in every market for the first time in history, igniting competition with cable. When McCain’s bill became law, satellite TV had 8 million subscribers. Today, they serve 30 million.
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