At long last, John McCain and Barack Obama can pantomime lightsaber duels or get their Numa Numa on like any other red-blooded American. In a move that a spokesperson for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called "a major step into the future," the Senate Rules and Administration Committee has deigned to permit links to third-party sites like YouTube and Flickr from Senators' official pages.

Roll Call reports that the change was made last week, ending the oft-ignored ban, but preserving general rules against using official resources for either commercial or partisan political purposes. The details will presumably need working out as, for instance, an embedded YouTube video will typically display a list of "related" videos after it ends, over which members of Congress would have little control.

The restrictions on third-party sites first became controversial this summer—due in large measure, appropriately enough, to a congressman's Twitter message. Rep. John Culbertson (R-TX) blasted the regulations as censorship, declaring in one micropost: "Before I could post a Tweet I would have to get approval of the twits that run the House!" The Sunlight Foundation, which hailed last week's rules change as a victory for more open government, even launched a "Let Our Congress Tweet" campaign.

Culbertson was referring to a House proposal, implicitly rejected by the new Senate rules, to loosen the existing restrictions by creating a whitelist of sites legislators could link freely. The Rules Committee will still retain such a list for advisory purposes, but Senators would not be limited to approved sites. It remains to be seen whether the House will follow suit.

Perhaps, under the new rules, John McCain can make Friday's presidential debate after all, even while rushing back to Washington in hopes of pushing through Wall Street bailout legislation. He'll just have to limit his responses to 140 characters.