Here's the full text of what Federal Communications Commission chair Julius Genechowski had to say at Brookings this morning, as he both announced the FCC's more aggressive approach to keeping the Internet open and provided a sketch of his ambitions for his tenure at the head of the commission...

It's a shame -- he'd probably already taken his suit to get pressed. Just a single day after putting Julius Genachowski's FCC chair confirmation hearing on the Senate Science Committee's schedule for next Tuesday, Senator Jay Rockefeller et al yanked it back off this afternoon. A committee spokesperson, reports the Wall Street Journal, attributed the abrupt change of plans to a "bipartisan" agreement to postpone Genachowski's congressional hazing until at least after the Memorial Day recess, meaning that there won't be a new lead on the Federal Communications Commission until at least the first week in June. The situation seems to be that Senate Republicans are reluctant to give Genachowski the thumbs up unless he's paired with a Republican counterpart. And they can't seem to make up their minds as to who that should be. The premature scheduling, in fact, may have been an attempt to light a fire under Republicans. Didn't work! Meanwhile, the FCC chugs along with a skeleton crew of three commissioners -- at the same time the commission is charged with coming up with a national broadband plan to direct the spending of some $7.2 billion in stimulus spending.

UPDATE: Mere seconds after posting this post, Congress Daily reported that Senate Republicans are "coalescing" around Meredith Baker, the (former?) acting administrator of the Commerce Department office that oversees broadband. A coincidence? Doubtful, my friends, doubtful.