Here in Washington, a classic way to get a bad policy passed is to attach it to the back of some unrelated “must pass” piece of legislation. Attaching one bad idea to a bill is sneaky.  Attaching two bad ideas is bold.  Attaching three?  Well, that’s what we have with a trio of horrible wireless ideas that some people in Congress are trying to attach to the upcoming Payroll Tax bill.

It is almost as if the proponents of these additions took a few years’ worth of ideas that will make wireless worse, wrapped them up in a bundle, and glued them to the underside of a bill that – if it does not pass – will raise taxes for millions of Americans.  In this case, these conditions would apply to spectrum freed up by the transition to digital TV broadcasting, and would impact some of the most useful spectrum to become available for years.  What are these conditions?

This week the tech world will descend on Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show.  While there is nothing subtle about a 152-inch 3D plasma TV there are plenty of subtle forces coming from DC that shape what you see at shows like CES and at retailers like Amazon and Best Buy.  Here are just four examples.

AllVid or Why Can’t Apple, Google, Microsoft, Roku, and Boxee Boxes Get Cable Channels?

Thomas Friedman writes in his column yesterday that none of the Republican candidates has focused much on technological innovation, then proceeds to focus on the matter of “smart cities.” Friedman’s thesis is fairly straightforward: to maintain our competitive edge, we will need to keep pumping up our bandwidth, particularly in cities and towns which historically act as the incubators for The Next Big Thing and all its associated, Highly Useful Little Things. Blair Levin’s Gig U gets favorable mention, and Blair gets quoted a lot on why we want huge bandwidth in urban areas as well as making sure everyone gets access to functional broadband.

We remember the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse as the end of the Civil War, despite the fact that Confederate forces remained in the field for several weeks thereafter. The announcement by AT&T and Deutsche Telekom (DT) that they have told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dismiss their application to transfer T-Mo to AT&T “without prejudice” is rather similar.

From Mountain Area Information Network, A N.C. non-profit, to Congressman Schuler.

Not surprisingly, the ubiquitous combination of incentive auctions/D Block re-allocation/Public Safety Network has made its way into the proposed American Jobs Act. Somewhat surprisingly, the spectrum piece is not simply a reprint of the Hutchison/Rockefeller S.911 Bill or the Democratic House discussion draft. It’s not even a straight cut and paste from Reid’s Debt Ceiling/Deficit Reduction draft (Reid being the one who introduced the President's Bill) that gave the broadcasters conniptions but raised the revenue for debt reduction.

No sooner had I posted my wonkish critique of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score for S.911, the Rockefeller Public Safety/Spectrum Bill over on my Wetmachine blog ("Where snark meets wonk and the sparks fly!") when Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) turns around and drops a new version of the plan as part of his debt ceiling bill (Best version of Debt Ceiling bill I could find here).