AT&T wants to make a deal. America's second-largest mobile telephone provider and its largest landline provider wants to purchase DirecTV, the satellite television provider, for $49 billion. Regulators routinely have to sign off on such mega-deals. At least in theory, they do so in the interest of protecting the freedom of the marketplace from monopolistic practices. But in this case, the regulators are not protecting consumers — instead, the Washington Post reported last week, the Federal Communications Commission appears to be using this deal as a bargaining chip to buy off one of the larger and better-funded sources of opposition...