Speaking from my personal experience of this week, it isn’t easy to get to Park City, Utah and back in a day.  The flight to Salt Lake was easy enough, but the van ride through the mountains to the ski resort where the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG)  was holding its annual meeting was far from pleasant.  Creeping along Interstate 80 in a snowstorm, it was unsettling to see all those cars off the road and ambulances sliding sideways in the slush.  I was Park City to discuss the future of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School (http://www/stateag.org) and then take a red eye back to New York so that I could teach.  

After I left, the new U.S.Attorney General Michael Mukasey made the same trek – although presumably in a more commodious fashion – to make his first public policy statement during which he encouraged more states to add information to their data bases in order to assure that mentally ill people will not be able to purchase guns. 

More important than these remarks, which could have been delivered anywhere, is the fact that General Mukasey made such an effort to meet with the country’s chief law enforcement officers.  The symbolism of his travel was not lost on state attorneys general who over the last three years have felt seriously estranged from then-Attorney General Gonzales.  By simply showing up – and without mentioning his predecessor – our new Attorney General made it clear that he and the state attorneys general are on the same side.

And that is a very good thing.