Microsoft-Sponsored Bogus Letter Campaign an Affront.

DEAR elected official:

My name is MR. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and I'm an ordinary "grassroots" citizen writing to complain about the harsh treatment Microsoft has received from your municipality/county/state/nation.

As you are surely aware, a federal appeals court recently upheld a judge's finding that Microsoft engaged in anticompetitive practices to preserve its PC operating system monopoly. The case was sent back to a new judge to impose punishment and to determine whether the company committed another violation by building its Internet Explorer Web browser into the Windows operating system.

What you might not realize is that you, sir/madam, can do something to stop this senseless persecution of one of America's greatest companies. Since your government, signed onto the antitrust case, you can urge the court to take it easy on the company that Fortune magazine once called "really really big" and restore Microsoft to the top of the smoldering slagheap once known as the "hightech market"

Now stop and ask yourself: Why is the government trying to crush one of this nation's greatest success stories? I've discussed this matter frequently with MRS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and the best we can come up with is that people just can't help picking on Bill Gates. I admit, I've even caught myself once in a while saying,

"Dam it, that Bill Gates is just too dam dashing" and making other such disparaging remarks.

Well, that's no reason to drag down the entire U.S. economy. Have you noticed that our current slowdown coincides with court rulings against Microsoft? Sure, those tax rebate checks were nice. But unless consumers use that money to invest in the next Windows upgrade, they won't do much good. Let's everybody hit the Start Button [TM] of the new economy and sign over those checks to Microsoft!

But I digress. Strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry. If the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation.

Perhaps you heard this pitch before. In fact, the truth of this logic is so powerful that you may even have received another letter that contains those very same phrases. Or maybe it was more like 20 letters.

But just because the Los Angeles Times recently uncovered a scheme by a Microsoftfunded industry group to produce bogus letters from "grassroots" citizens like myself to public officials like yourself doesn't make our arguments any less valid.

The Times reported that this group, Americans for Technology Leadership, has been calling up real people like myself, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and asking us about the Microsoft case. If we sound sympathetic to the company -- and what Gates-fearing American wouldn't? -- they send us a prewritten letter to sign and an envelope addressed to the public official we're supposed to send it to. Heck, they even kick in the stamp!

Some people say this technique is deceptive. They said the same thing three years ago when the Times caught Microsoft making plans to plant phony letters to the editor and guest columns in newspapers.

But what they don't understand is that oldfashioned, grassroots democracy is outmoded and inefficient. Waiting for actual people to make up their own minds about an issue as complicated as antitrust law is as tedious as trying to run a computer without Windows.

Consider this effort a first step at a new vision of public policy -- Democracy XP. Why bother coming up with your own opinions when Microsoft and other Microsoft-licensed partners like Enron, ADM and AOL Time Warner can do it for you? With just a few signatures, you can weigh in on everything from President Bush's energy policy to ethanol subsidies to broadband access, without even bothering to think!

Admittedly, there are still a few bugs to work out. It turns out that a few of these letters were supposedly written by people who aren't entirely alive -- like myself, MR. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. But Microsoft says it'll have a patch available on its Web site, so Democracy XP should soon be running smoothly.

So please, sir/madam, do what you can to get your government off Microsoft's back. We "grassroots" citizens need to get back to writing letters in support of limiting lawsuits against poor, defenseless HMOs.

To contact syndicated columnist Joe Salkowrki, you can e-mail him at [e-mail] or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611.