We're going to see it in our prices. Most of the products we buy are delivered by truck and somewhere, those increases in gas prices have to be absorbed.

Especially in this city, they need gasoline for their cars, but I think they will cut back on other things. So we may see fewer people going to the movies, maybe renting fewer videos, going out to eat less.

They still see the need to learn and to get a leg up on the younger generation.

Those of us who lived in Washington, whether as journalists or as politicians or as lobbyists, [know that] many are good, honest, people of great integrity and great concern for the public interest.

It has to come back to the amount of money in campaigns. Ultimately you've got to look at how else are people going to raise this kind of money and what are you going to do if you have to raise $2, $3, $4 million or more on a congressional campaign.

The fact that this was going on was kind of known. I blame the press as well as the rest of the players in the institution for not doing something earlier.