To put the matter to rest once and for all, Rep. Mike Pence's Broadcaster Freedom Act emerged last June to formally prohibit the FCC from ever repromulgating the doctrine. The Indiana Republican, himself a former radio host, is this bill's ideal spokesman. But it has languished in committee.

At present, a discharge petition to bring a vote has garnered 196 signatures. Two-hundred eighteen votes are needed. Of the 309 House members who approved the one-year moratorium attached to the financial-services bill, approximately 100 have not signed the petition. Not surprisingly, the flip-floppers fall along partisan lines. But it's worth reminding these newly minted "Fairness Democrats" that it wasn't so long ago that they rightly abhorred government censorship of the airwaves.