Folks, we couldn’t have scripted this one any better. It’s been almost two years since Google kicked off its net neutrality push with a call for “lightweight but enforceable” government regulation – easily written and simple to apply.

Looks like someone forgot to remind Google’s corporate bloggers of the company line.

One of the first entries on the company’s new blog is a call-to-arms on net neutrality, claiming the Net should be “free and open to all comers.” OK, antitrust and unfair competition laws already guarantee that but it’s a nice sentiment.

Then it gets interesting: The blog argues that government should not prohibit broadband carriers from “managing their networks to, for example, block certain traffic based on IP address in order to prevent harmful denial of service (DOS) attacks, viruses or worms.”

By using “prevent”, it sounds like Google approves of a carrier taking action to protect the Net before an attack starts. Given today’s threats to online safety, that’s logical – EXCEPT that it means neutrality regulations would have to include legally binding definitions for when and how a broadband carrier may take such action without fear of liability. The regulations would also have to define DOS attacks, Trojan horses, worms and viruses.

These regulations would have to be specific enough to deal with current problems but also broad enough to cover new threats.

And Google thinks all of this will be accomplished with “lightweight” regulation? Right, and Ozzy Osbourne is a correspondent for The 700 Club.

For our part, we don’t have special insights into how DOS attacks and malware will continue evolving. But there’s no doubt that the best way to repulse these challenges to Internet safety is through allowing carriers to respond rapidly and without huge liability threats.

In short, Google’s talking out of both sides of its mouth. It’s claiming neutrality rules will be “lightweight” while also acknowledging growing and complex challenges to online safety.

A cynic might say that Google’s contradiction indicates the likelihood of an ulterior (read: financial) motive for supporting neutrality rules. But hey, that’s cynicism for you.