Bill Clinton: “Well, I think first of all, you have to take--on these mergers, under our law and as a matter of economics, you have to…”

“Well, I think first of all, you have to take--on these mergers, under our law and as a matter of economics, you have to take them case by case and analyze them. And all I know about the proposed mergers is what I read this morning when I woke up. So I can't comment on that. I do think it would be an error to set up a situation in the United States where one person could own half the television stations in the country or half of the media outlets. And we don't have a fairness doctrine anymore, and we don't have--particularly if we took the Federal Government out of--all the Federal agencies out of any kind of maintenance of competition or maintenance of competitive environment, by taking the Justice Department out of it, for example. I would remind you that we have the most successful telecommunications operations in the world partly because we have had the proper balance between a highly competitive environment and an openness to new forces and new technologies and new entries in it from all around the world. I want very badly to sign a telecommunications bill. We tried to pass one, this administration did, during the last session of Congress. One of the interest groups affected by this great drama that's unfolding in the telecommuni- cations area prevented, through its supporters in the Senate, prevented the bill from passing in the last session of Congress. I hope we can get it, but we want to get it right. The Vice President has done a lot of work on this over the years. He and I have talked about this at great length. And we have negotiated in good faith with the Congress to try to get it right. We want very much to sign a bill. We believe it will be good for the American economy and good for the American consumers if it's the right kind of bill. So we'll keep working on it. Thank you.”