In response to a Federal Communications Commission Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published Thursday, John McCain introduced his own Internet Freedom Act of 2009 in the United States Senate, revealing the administrative style the U.S. would likely have faced had he won the 2008 presidential election over Barack Obama.

The FCC's proposed rules, which seek to codify guidelines that have been in place since 2005, would require Internet Service Providers to allow their customers open, non-discriminatory access to the applications, devices and services of their choice, and would also require ISP's to be open and transparent about their reasonable acts to manage network congestion. First announced last month by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the rules are intended, in Genachowski's words, "to provide a fair framework in which all participants in the Internet ecosystem can operate, ultimately minimizing the need for government involvement.”

McCain, the long-time Arizona Republican whose electoral efforts and pet Political Action Committees are generously funded by the very corporations whose rapacious behavior the FCC was created to monitor, called the proposed "net neutrality" rules a "government takeover" of the Internet that would stifle innovation and further depress an "already anemic" job market in the U.S.

The senator appears to be aligned with Glenn Beck and other right-wing malcontents, who see any government effort to ensure fairness or a level playing field among participants in the social economy as a Marxist takeover.  His bill would strip the FCC of its authority to regulate the nation's communications assets, and leave operation of the Internet in the hands of telecommunications carriers and cable companies, which have already shown a propensity to favor certain (read: lucrative) content over others and to secretly throttle content, applications and services which threaten their profits.

The public comment period for the FCC's proposed rules will remain open until spring 2010 and it is unlikely McCain's Orwellian take on the meaning of "Internet Freedom" will garner enough votes in the senate to pass before then.

What's clear is that, despite the reasonable criticism sparked by President Obama's measured approach to undoing the damage caused by the Bush administration, we are lucky reality-based citizens made it to the polls in sufficient nummbers last November to keep McCain and his daffy ticket mate out of the White House.