The Roundtable meeting took place only a few weeks after the FAA revoked AMI Jet Charter's operating certificate.  Everyone I spoke to in between sessions with government representatives had an opinion as to why this happened.  No one blamed AMI (or TAG Aviation, AMI's parent).  Several drew an analogy between FAA attorney Loretta Alkalay and Mike Nifong, the now disbarred attorney who prosecuted the Duke lacrosse players.  Alkalay is the FAA lawyer who headed up the AMI investigation.  "Malicious prosecution" was a term used by many.  One prominent aviation journalist called it a "witch hunt".

 Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, was the first official we met with.  Mary Peters, the Secretary of Transportation, followed Chertoff.  I had a question for Peters, but before my hand could be recognized, a staffer declared that time was up and the Q&A over.  I wanted to point out to her that sitting directly on her left was the president of BBA Aviation, parent of Signature Flight Support.  A few chairs to her right sat the President of Midcoast Aviation and several other senior officers of Jet Aviation, Midcoast's parent.  At an adjoining table were two senior officers of Landmark Aviation.  All of these companies and several others present at the Roundtable are 100% foreign-owned.  So my unasked question: "Why, Mrs. Peters, in this global economy that we live in, does it make any sense to preclude foreign ownership of a business jet charter company?"

A meeting in Washington would not be complete without meeting with a politician.  Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani spoke with us and explained his four major concerns with our government: over-regulation, over-spending, over-taxation, and over-suing.  He mentioned his accomplishments in the Reagan administration and what he was able to accomplish as Mayor of New York.  He spoke about the metamorphosis of Times Square and how parents could now bring their children in comfort to see Mary Poppins, where when he took office as Mayor there were many "Marys" in Times Square, but not the ones you took your children to see.  He used this as one example of how he would take on what others see as the impossible.  I liked what I heard.

Dinner was held in the Corcoran Gallery of Art where there was an exhibit of photographs by Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz; two of America's best known photographers.  Adams is known for his black and white photographs of the American west, and Leibovitz for her photographs of celebrities, most notably a nude Demi Moore seven months pregnant.

David Almy, NATA's Vice President of Marketing and Communication sat at my dinner table.  David had been taking pictures of Nick Sabatini at the FAA meeting with a silent digital long range camera until Sabatini,  obviously frustrated by pressure from Coyne, looked across the room and declared, "You with the camera, please stop that.  It is very annoying."

David told me that he spoke to Sabatini after the meeting and both apologized to each other.  I learned that David has a master's degree in photography.  When I asked him a question about the Adam/Liebovitz exhibits, he offered to walk through the exhibits with me.  David told me things about Adams I never knew, and took me to his favorites photographs and explained why.  At the Liebovitz exhibit, his favorite was an intriguing portrait of Queen Elizabeth II done before her visit to Virginia earlier this year.

The Roundtable meeting ended with lunch and conversation with Lynne Cheney, wife of the Vice President.  I had met her before at a Roundtable meeting a few years ago when we had cocktails at the Vice President's home.  She talked not about politics but mostly about her interest in helping young people learn about history.  She has written five New York Times best selling children's books about American history.  I left the luncheon with an autographed copy of her just released book Blue Skies No Fences, her story of growing up in Wyoming.