The audience was made up of students in grades 10-12 , a few of their parents, and a couple of rows of staff. Loud dance and techno music was playing, like someone was about to announce today's starting lineup. Five secret service agents walked in really fast, all together, and took their stations near the doors. They wore dark suits and earpieces and looked like they were ready to speak in code and take down anyone who tried to breach the security of the school auditorium. The ambassador strode in with his three piece suit and took the microphone. Here are some of the things he said:
"Hey everyone do you like this music? I put the CD together myself - (pointing to secret service agent #3) Show it to them, George." George holds up CD. Murphy starts walking up and down the aisle.
"Are there any Americans in the audience" a couple dozen hands go up. "Where are you from... Houston? All right, go 'Stros. How about you? San Diego? Wonderful city. Maine - are you a member of the Red Sox nation? Ok, I'm from Long Island too! We belong to the Snooty pants yacht club, do you? Wisconsin - did you see the Packers on Monday night?"
"How about Germans? How many Germans are here? People from other parts of Europe? Tell me where? Asia? Where from - Oh Malaysia, are you from KL or somewhere else? "(This goes on for a while, I will spare you all the schmooze).
"My kids go to an international school too in Berlin. Berlin is very diplomat-heavy so there is a lot of demand for international schools. Hannover is a lot more... diverse."
"America has a lot of shared values with our closest ally, Germany. There are the shared values of freedom, and democracy, and all that stuff."
Before I go on with the quotes, I'll tell you a little more about Ambassador Murphy. He was a Goldman Sachs banker who became the finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He donated $1.3 million of his own money to Obama's campaign.
So Murphy is a political appointee, not a career diplomat. I am sure he's well connected in the banking world which would help in his position... but I have a feeling the people who do the real work at the embassy in Berlin were not in Hannover talking to us. They were at the embassy, working.
Does this mean I should respect him less? No, and it doesn't mean he's not a good guy. I just didn't really believe much of what he said, which was ok because he didn't really say anything important.
"You know, in the U.S., if you are invited for a party where they have cocktails at 7 and dinner at 8, everybody shows up at least half an hour after the cocktails start (keep in mind that most of his audience is under the age of 17. How many cocktail parties are they invited to?). But in Germany, if you say 7, everyone shows up right on time. I love that about Germany."
He did talk about the elections a little. He did say that foreign policy isn't the main issue in the campaign, and that the economy is. He talked for two minutes about the electoral college. Then he had the kids take a quiz. Anyone who answered a question correctly got to have a photo taken with the ambassador. The questions on the quiz were things like: Which state is the largest in area? How many people live in the U.S.? When do Americans sing during sporting events? (That last one was actually a jab at Germans, who sing during the whole game. It was hysterical.)
And that was it. He strode out to the tune of "it's all about the money, money, money".... oddly appropriate.
Since I've been writing about stereotypes, Ambassador Murphy didn't do much to show me that he was helping the image of Americans in Europe. He was overly friendly, a little bit insincere, and didn't say anything that was really smart or enlightening... of course maybe that's the stereotype of a slick politician anywhere.
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