Does Obama Want to Own the Airlines?

Holman Jenkins, WSJ:

These incentives would very likely prevail in the highly flexible airline alliances. Such alliances are no miracle cure for what ails the domestic carriers, but they would open a window to let us see beyond antitrust's indiscriminate prejudice against cooperative acts by competitors.

Of course, this would fly in the face of Ms. Varney's agenda, which is to expand the bailiwick of the Washington antitrust bar. Even now, she has turned her attention from airlines to the mobile-phone business on the theory that any industry that hasn't collapsed into government receivership must be doing something wrong.

Where does this end? Government Air, Aeroflop? Too big to crash? God help us, Obama probably does want to take them over. Then he can paint his logo on the tail.