I have just returned from a trip to our nation's capital to attend a talk radio conference and visit friends. The first thing that hits you when you ascend the capital steps is the massive construction project right in front of it. There is an entire area torn up and cordoned off. I asked a staffer what it was and he told me they were building a new visitors center to better process people through the highly secured area. But guess what? The project is way behind schedule and way over budget, something like $400 million. This set the stage for my visit to the seat of big government.

  Everyone in the US Congress has a blackberry machine. They talk to each other, schedule meetings and send gossip over these devices. They were given to each member free after 9/11, when the entire legislative branch was sent running through the streets not knowing what was happening. The blackberry machine has become like a TV camera for Chuck Schumer, indispensable. No one can live without one.

  Sometimes when I take a trip, I'm doubtful which part of it will be most fulfilling, especially when disparate elements are involved. The radio convention was fairly uneventful. Rush Limbaugh spoke and was very entertaining. I met and spoke with Bill Bennett and John Gibson of Fox News, who is launching a new syndicated show. Bill Bennett's thoughts on the Dubai Ports Deal (opposed) were well formulated but I thought overstated. He said Bush's second term would "founder' on the Port deal. Much better was former senator Fred Thompson who advised waiting to see if there was a threat to national security before forming an opinion. Alas, we never got that chance. I have never felt that this deal was as bad as a lot of people portrayed it and the implications are negative for free trade and building bridges in the Islamic world, if indeed we hope to build them.

  But the highlight of my trip was spending time with my high school friend Charlie Bass of New Hampshire's Second Congressional District. In the flow of people running through his office in a day, one is struck by just how subject our representatives are to the beliefs and worldviews of their constituents. From biking club members to environmental lobbyists to Air Force ROTC groups, to high school "mock government" participants, they came to Washington seeking a listening ear, a political favor or a photo. Congressman Bass is so sensitive to his district that he can give detailed accounts of the difference between French Catholics and Irish Catholics and their views toward government, why all pro-lifers are not the same and why his constituents are more liberal than the "Taxachusetts" refugees of the eastern 1st district, which, oh by the way, is why he and they are against drilling in ANWR. Members of Congress are not unaccountable kingpins. They are leaders on a short string who must run every two years. They spend their time recovering from the last election and getting ready for the next. They win usually, not just because of money, but by high-paid internal polling.

  Fortunately, I was able to connect with most of the local Florida contingent, Ander Crenshaw, Cliff Stearns, John Mica and yes, The Honorable Corrine Brown. (An accidental meeting at a restaurant.) Even a hurried and frazzled Katherine Harris just off the House floor.

  What concerns me most about our country, on reflection, are our centers of power in America. Power breeds corruption and Washington D.C. is not the only power center to expand its waistline recently. We saw it in the Wall Street bubble and subsequent corporate scandals. We have seen it in the sewage flowing out from Hollywood or in the case of the 2006 Academy Awards, in the agitprop that continues to lack much appeal to average Americans. Now Washington is consumed with lobbying and earmark reform under an ever expanding government. Their is no other solution than to defund and reduce the federal government, an idea most Americans don't yet want.

  But it is still true that keeping up the pressure will eventually cause them to change. Corporate America is cleaning up its act. The democratization of media (over the internet, video on demand etc.) will force Hollywood to change its tune, if only to make money. Just as talk radio and the blogs democratized news gathering and dissemination, so our friends in the House and Senate will only go, in the long term, where we allow them to. The truth is: we have more access, information and power than we ever have. The bottom line? Our institutions are a reflection of us. If Congress isn't going the way we want, it is probably because we have not convinced our fellow citizens to join us. Painful but true.

  John Pendleton