Saturday evening I was scheduled to fly back to Greenville. As it turned out, my flight was delayed and then cancelled, but thankfully I was able to get on another flight out of Washington. Because of my changed itinerary I met my parents in Atlanta, where they had been for the weekend, rather than flying directly into Greenville. When I got home my bed was turned down just like the Hotel Monaco.

Thus ends a busy and enjoyable week. I don’t think I will be posting anything more unless I find that I have enough yet unseen photos to make a gallery. Thank you for your interest.

After our Friday afternoon activities wrapped up we had the night free. The students who didn’t have to leave town went out for supper. After being turned away by several classier restaurants because we didn’t have reservations, we settled down in one of my favorite Washington eateries, Five Guys Burgers.

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Friday we had our last two Freedom Scholar sessions. We dug into legal decisions dealing with civil liberties in time of war. We looked at several well known Supreme Court decisions as well as cases from the UK, Israel, and the UN’s International Court of Justice. Mrs. Hendrickson asked us to evaluate the legal basis for the decisions. Then we asked the difficult question of whether each case was truly rights-affirming or not. None of us leave with concrete answers on these issues although we have a new perspective on them.

I enjoy meeting new people and hearing their unique stories. At a conference like this a lot of people come alone, so there a plenty of opportunities for interaction. For me, it has also been a chance to put faces with names I have seen elsewhere.

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Friday we had a change of plans. We were scheduled to go for a White House briefing, but the trip was overbooked. Because all of the Freedom Scholars had just been at the White House for a briefing last summer, we were given free time for the second half of the morning. The International Spy Museum is next door to our hotel, so several us went to there for a few hours.
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An observant reader asked how Brit Hume and company were able to be on Fox News on Wednesday night AND at our dinner. (We don’t have Fox in our hotel, so I didn’t see Special Report to know that Brit was on.) Brit said they did the show before they came over. He gave the impression that they recorded the show for a tape-delayed broadcast, but they may have done it live and then hurried over.

Last night John Stossel gave the keynote address, “Freedom and Its Enemies.” Stossel is a unique figure. He has won numerous honors for his investigative reporting, including 19 Emmy Awards. After years as a reporter Stossel’s political views began to shift. He became less and less convinced that big government and heavy regulation were the answer to the problems he was uncovering. As he abandoned the liberal, anti-business rhetoric he became more and more unpopular and stopped winning Emmy’s. Today he is one of the most visible proponents of free market economics in mass media.

It’s hard to summarize Stossel’s address without notes because he covered so much ground. He gave a clear primer in free market thought and then combined that with his experience in investigative reporting. Stossel also talked about how news decisions are made at the major networks. Producers want novel and visual stories. (Often trial lawyers bring sob stories to consumer reporters hoping to generate lawsuits.)

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Today we had our first Freedom Scholars session with Kim Hendrickson. She teaches at George Washington University and is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. After a brief orientation to find out more about each other, we started discussing national security and civil liberties.

She’s making us start at square one evaluating the premises underlying the current debate. (Ex: Why have civil liberties generally increased in the U.S. as the government has grown larger?) Most of our session today was devoted to discussing several of the passages that we read before coming. Friday we have several sessions and we will dive into some court decisions. Mrs. Hendrickson is good at facilitating discussion and including all of the students.

After breakfast we went on a tour of Capitol Hill. Although the tour was fairly standard we did come in a different door which allowed a better view than I have ever had of the Capitol and the Mall. Three Congressman spoke to our group about legislation they are working on right now. The best comment was from Rep. Flake (R-AR), I believe, when he said that when Congress acts quickly or unanimously it usually messes up. He cited the federalization of airport screeners and Sarbanes-Oxley as two examples, of reactionary and flawed legislation.

Our adhesive nametags that allowed us to be in the Capitol turned a different color (from white to blue) when we exited the building. Apparently the nametags are sensitive to sunlight and indicate to security that a person should not be back in the building. I need to do more research on this.

Today we had our awards luncheon. I won’t run through all of the awards, but just hit a highlight or two. During his acceptance speech one of the lifetime achievement recipients announced that one of the reasons he had come was to make a large six-digit contribution to TFAS. As someone pointed out, that was a hard act to follow for the other honorees. The alumni awards went to Mark Johnson of the Charlotte Observer and Kirby Wilbur, a talk radio host out of Seattle.

After 34 years, baseball is returning to Washington. Tonight, the Washington Nationals play their first homegame since moving to the District. Washingtonians are pretty excited.

Yesterday after I checked in to my hotel, I went over to visit Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, my intern sponsor last summer. I was able to see several of my friends from the summer. It was good to see Ray, the intern coordinator, and the folks in the photo department. I enjoyed talking with the receptionist, a sweet lady who is something of a mother figure to the office. She surprised me by calling me by name even though we had had limited contact when I was there. I also found out that Nikki, one of my KRT friends who helped me get acclimated last summer, is now a photographer for the Washington Post.

The office has also changed some. They have put up some fantastic poster-size reproductions of news photos. Since I was there KRT has shut down its video graphics division and a related news service has moved into their old space.

Some of you may know that after spending a semester on the road I am a real hotel nerd. So, for me staying in the Hotel Monaco is like taking a kid to a candy shop. The hotel was built in 1839 and is on the national register of historic places. The building was designed by Robert Mills, the man who designed the Washington Monument. Dickens described it as “very compact and very beautiful.” The Monaco used to be a government building, housing the Tariff Office. It’s ironic that we are having a conference celebrating free market education in the old Tariff Building.
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Tonight we kicked off our conference with a reception and a roast in honor of Fred Barnes. The room was full of personalities from Fox and a sampling of other news outlets, so it was fun watching the guests filter in. For you real news junkies, the speakers were David Brooks (NY Times), Juan Williams (NPR; Fox), Brit Hume (Fox), Bob Novak (syndicated columnist) and Jerry Leachman (Washington Redskins chaplain and Fred’s pastor). I also recognized Major Garrett and Jeff Birnbaum in the audience. I’m sure there were plenty of other people I would have recognized if I were more savvy.
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I’m checked in to my room in the Hotel Monaco. It’s quite the place. I’m hoping to post pictures later. It turns out that I used to walk past the Monaco on my lunch breaks when I went to Chipotle, so I am pretty familiar with the neighborhood.

Wednesday, April 13

Roasters:
• David Brooks, The New York Times
• Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard
• Brit Hume, Fox News
• Bob Novak, Syndicated Columnist
• Jerry Leachman, Friend of Fred

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Michael Collins is a senior business major at Bob Jones University. This is a temporary blog where he chronicled his time at The Fund for American Studies’ Donor Retreat and Freedom Scholars Seminar in Washington, D.C., on April 12-16, 2005.

After my morning classes on Tuesday I took off for the airport. About five hours later I am in Washington, DC. I’ll be here for the week attending the Fund for American Studies (TFAS) Annual Conference. They have an exciting lineup of activities planned for us including receptions, special speakers, and briefings around the capital. See the schedule here.

Most people attend the Annual Conference as donors, but I am here on a scholarship as part of the Freedom Scholars program. I’ll be participating in focused discussions on national security and civil liberties with eleven other college students. All of the students are alumni of TFAS’s 2004 summer institutes.

I’m looking forward to seeing several (hopefully many) of my classmates, teachers, coworkers, and other acquaintances from last summer. See my summer blog here.