A fitting end to a bad idea

By a 20-to-2 vote (ouch), a Senate committee rejected a proposal by John McCain to impose a la carte pricing on the cable industry.

Which means C-SPAN won't be put on an ice floe and your cable bill won't be reduced 10 percent while your cable lineup is reduced 40 percent.

"People who are retirees … don't want to spend $3 for ESPN every month," griped McCain. No, and I don't want to spend 50 cents a month for Discovery Times, a channel Discovery right now currently gives away. But that's what it's gonna cost under the new plan. At least.

Sen. Ted Stevens ominously predicted that he would be back.  Oops, sorry -- Sen. Ted Stevens ominously predicted that a la carte legislation would be back.  But why should it ever come back?  The government has a hard enough time regulating the things it's already implemented, like closed captioning.  And the need for a la carte will soon be obviated by video-on-demand. I wouldn't be surprised if entire major cable networks were delivered by VOD in the near future. Voluntarily.