WASHINGTON -- It may not be the end, but it may be the beginning of the end. The Bush administration should use the dramatic reversal of the court-ordered break up of Microsoft to end the case.
In 1998, the U.S. Justice Department and 19 state attorneys general filed an antitrust case against the software giant. Last year District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson decided to split Microsoft in two.
The company appealed. Now a seven-member Court of Appeals panel has unanimously tossed Jackson off the case, accusing him of violating the judicial code of conduct in "deliberate, repeated, egregious and flagrant" ways.