WashPo’s Touch Up Job on Lina Khan’s Gold Leaf Halo

September 28th, 2023

It’s amazing how compliantly The Washington Post spins for those it admires. In today’s Post, Will Oremus writes that Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s case against Amazon is “the case Khan was born to make.”

He notes a disturbing new detail – that Lina Khan’s lawsuit is nothing like the famous law school paper that launched her career. In that paper, Khan targeted Amazon as the test case to dethrone the reining consumer welfare standard. She depicted Amazon’s prices as aspects of its predatory behavior. The theory then was that that standard’s obsessive quest for lower prices and more choices for consumers was too narrow to take in the full spectrum of competitors and other interests that needed to be protected by antitrust law.

Progressive antitrusters held this line until this filing. Lina Khan and Tim Wu were the guiding lights behind President Biden’s famous, televised rip of my father. The president denounced the consumer welfare standard that Judge Bork articulated.

Now in the lawsuit Lina Khan filed on Tuesday pays quiet homage to Judge Bork and the consumer welfare standard, blaming Amazon for setting a floor on prices to the detriment of consumers. This is odd, given that Amazon’s prices are 13 percent lower than those of the nearest dozen retail competitors. But that’s what she’s hanging her hat on.

So WashPo readers, take note – the new line of the day is that this ideological flip-flop is just part of Khan’s practical evolution. It shows “she’s willing to make concessions to the status quo to avoid another defeat.” The rest of the piece includes a slew of helpful and supportive quotes, just to avoid hurting her feelings.

That Lina Khan just repudiated the law school thesis that made her reputation is just a detail now. What’s important is this latest stage in her march to greatness.