Janet Reno stood steely-eyed before the microphone, the Attorney General Like She Oughta Be, bringing bad guys to heel on behalf of the American populace. The bad guy in question last week was the software titan Microsoft Corp. The Justice Department's antitrust division, led by new chief Joel Klein, claims the software colossus violated the terms of a 1995 agreement that bars the company from using its operating-system dominance to strong-arm PC makers such as Compaq Computer Corp. and Micron Technology into installing additional Microsoft software on their machines, thus squeezing out competitors.
The strong-arming in question this time around is...