What changed the FCC Chairman's mind?

[Commentary] The network neutrality regulation that passed with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's vote -- and those of the other two Democrats on the FCC -- was not the much sounder one Chairman Wheeler initially proposed, but a radical version that carries within it opportunities for mischief and much worse than that. So what happened to change Wheeler's mind?

The most obvious explanation is the interjection of President Barack Obama who, a few weeks before the vote, publicly stated his view that the FCC should subject Internet service providers to utility-like regulation. This is the explanation for Chairman Wheeler's switch held by most insiders, and there's no doubt that these FCC commissioners, their notional "independence" notwithstanding, move like earlier ones to the music of their parties and the Presidents that appoint them. But to think that this is all that occurred with the net neutrality vote is both too comfortable and myopic. It's too comfortable because it fails to challenge the inadequacy of the lobbies on the other side of the issue, and it's myopic because it looks past the enormous role played by the nation's crackpot left.

[Patrick Maines is President of the Media Institute]