Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to Kill Community Radio

[Commentary] Surely most of you are familiar with the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — that heart-warming classic where Jimmy Stewart exploits arcane Senate procedure to challenge political corruption and shady inside deals. There's a sequel playing out now in D.C., with a real-life Mr. Smith, but it's not the same kind of feel-good story.

Let's call it: Mr. Smith Stayed in Washington — And Now He's Killing Community Radio. The Mr. Smith in question is Gordon Smith, the former Republican senator from Oregon turned lobbyist-in-chief at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), one of the Capitol's most entrenched and powerful lobbies. In the original Mr. Smith, Stewart launched a filibuster to expose the smear campaign being waged against him buy a corrupt political machine. In this unfortunate follow-up, Mr. Smith is persuading his former colleagues to use a rolling series of secret holds to keep a bill off the floor that would create thousands of new hyper-local community radio stations.