Hot on the heels of President Obama reiterating his opposition to the return of the hoary old Fairness Doctrine, the Senate voted overwhelmingly 87-11 to prevent the FCC from reinstating it — not that the Commission had any plans to do so!

If you weren’t already confused, consider this: the Senate vote was on an amendment, itself amended, to an unrelated bill called the D.C. Voting Rights Act.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry… Litttle about the ginned-up controversy over putative attempts to “Hush Rush” has made much sense, since there never was a snowball’s chance in hell that the doctrine would return from the grave, as noted months ago in this space!

Now all that needs to happen to drive a stake through the heart of the FD is for the Voting Rights Act to pass the Senate and the fairness amendment to survive a conference with the House version of the bill.

You can expect the Obama Administration and its FCC to encourage and promote greater localism and diversity in media ownership, however, as a way to deal with the uneven distribution playing field that has resulted in a 9 to 1 conservative dominance of news-and-opinion talk radio.