“Bottom line? I am asking you to leave.” This week began with such promise. I was representing LEAP at the NAPOA (National Asian Police Officers Association) conference in metro DC by staffing the booth for four days. Monday was good, though the DEA agent gave me the evil eye, when I visited his booth. Tuesday started well, chatting with a table full of cops at breakfast, one of whom took my role of convincing his brothers to support LEAP. Thus, I was resting my voice,….. Finishing my third cup of coffee and about to head to the booth, when NAPOA President Reagan Fong asked to speak to me in private. We went into a room and he closed the door. This can’t be good I thought. Two minutes later the obviously conflicted and anguished Fong needed a nudge. I asked him what the bottom line was. Explaining that several of the federal agents staffing their booths objected to the LEAP message and my presence, he was honoring their wish that I leave immediately. We shook hands and 90 minutes later, I headed home. Analysis: What a gift from the feds! Not only did everyone become exposed to the LEAP message before I left, I let several attendees know what had happened. The NCIS (Naval Criminal Intelligence Service) agent I chatted with as I broke down the display was openly annoyed with me being asked to leave. Thus, by now, everyone knows what happened. Given the controversy, I am sure the attendees will take what happened back to their 23 local orgs (organizations) & retell the story. All of this is a plus for LEAP. The press release from LEAP has already hit a couple of good blogs and ezines. From Gandhi: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. We are at stage three. Only one more to go. Same old, same old: Last week I was on the Senate side of the Hill and met with a good number of staffers. Instead of five minutes of follow-up, they all engaged me for a solid 30 minutes or more. This was a repeat of the week before and the week before that. I write this to remind myself that my mission is moving inexorably in the direction I want it to go. And it feels great!