My attention kept shifting focus; I’d be listening when suddenly all I could think about was Jenny. Then after a few minutes I’d find myself back in the discussion. As one speaker was outlining the various ways Wrightman might legally use the hundreds of special powers given to the president through the decades by Congress, I found myself wondering if the men who came together in the churches and taverns of Boston 250 years ago to protest the injustices of the king might have felt as impotent and inconsequential as I did at that moment. Did those men, Sam Adams and Hancock and Revere among them, truly believe they could be more than a mosquito bite on the ass of the greatest empire in history? When they started meeting, I remembered from my history courses at Michigan, they had no intention of founding a nation. They didn’t threaten war. They simply wanted their government in England to extend to the colonies the same rights given to its other possessions.

I looked around the room. As much as I tried, I couldn’t imagine Adams and Jefferson in a sack race. (And the name Biff Jefferson did seem to lack the necessary gravitas.) But I was struck by the sincerity of the people there. These were people who understood what was slipping away and wanted to prevent it from happening. During that sweep I caught Laura-for-the-night looking at me quizzically. Too late, she averted her eyes, and then made a show of rubbing them, jutting out her chin and turning toward the speaker.

This particular speaker was advocating the publication of cyber-pamphlets on pop-up pirate sites. The administration had successfully cowed major media outlets into self-censoring content. Broadcast “news” had become so bland, in fact, that at the Pro we laughingly had begun referring to Chuck Todd’s once-incisive Sunday morning show as Meet the Presbyterians.

There was some support in the room for using these pirate sites just as the founding fathers had circulated anonymous pamphlets, to spread information and sow dissent. I started to raise my hand; I wanted to discuss where sites like the Pro fit in, but Howie put a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Not yet,” he mouthed.

Martha McDonnell was the final speaker. She described in general terms what was going on in Congress, admitting surprise that so many smart, decent people had rolled over so quickly and quietly. Their lack of moral courage had been a great disappointment, she said. In response she had organized a small group of people she trusted, they were calling themselves the Congressional Knitting Society, although thus far they hadn’t settled on any course of action, or for that matter, any knitting pattern.

Martha was a gifted speaker. She was a small woman, but her voice projected an oversize load of candor and intelligence. The whole room was leaning forward to catch every word. The most visible change on the Hill, she explained, had been the emergence of lobbyists as middlemen. The administration had designated certain lobbyists to carry its demands—and its rewards to those who publicly supported Wrightman. A woman raised her hand and asked, “Is that ethical?”