CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
April 28, 2009 – 12:08 a.m.

By John Edgell, CQ Guest Columnist

When the surviving members of the Grateful Dead met recently with President Obama in the Oval Office the conversation reportedly centered on the neatness of the president’s desk and the history of the White House.

The pleasant “no ties and no tie-dyes” drop-by took place while the Dead were in Washington for a mid-April concert at the Verizon Center, a few blocks away from the White House.

It’s too bad the Dead didn’t come prepared to discuss the intricacies of monopolies and the “essential facilities doctrine” of antitrust law with Obama, the former constitutional law professor. The Justice Department’s antitrust division must soon decide a pending merger request between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the nation’s largest ticket-selling and concert promoting firms, respectively. And the Dead and Ticketmaster have, shall we say, a history together.