POTUS

Ambassador Laurie Fulton introduced the President of the United States (POTUS) to a group of about fifty Embassy employees.

President Obama gave a brief speech thanking those of us lucky enough to be at that gathering for all the hard work that the entire Embassy had been doing to support his visit to Denmark and all the other aspects of the U.S. delegation to the Copenhagen UN Conference on Climate Change. He mentioned that he was glad to be able to meet some of us, since he hadn't been able to do that when he was here a couple months ago to support Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. He said how important it was to him to meet some of us, because he wanted to show that we have a President who understands the importance of the Foreign Service and its mission of promoting diplomacy in all parts of the globe. (He did try to manage our expectations, though, saying that although this was his third trip to Scandinavia in the last three months, he might not be able to come here quite that frequently throughout the rest of his presidency.)

I had come over to the Bella Center, the convention hall where the conference takes place, with both of my Consular FSO colleagues at about 10:30. We were expecting to be gathering for the "meet and greet" at 13:40, but wanted to make sure we could get through the long lines and potential transportation delays. The trains ran fine, and when we got there we got an update saying the event would start at 13:00 and we should meet at a specified place at 12:15. We walked around a bit, had some lunch, and looked at some of the different places in the convention center.

This banner is at the entrance to the Bella Center.

The U.S. Center, with an animated globe that shows how climate change affects the earth.

The meet and greet was postponed several times, and seemed like it might be cancelled altogether, as the POTUS got involved in the high-level negotiations and his schedule kept getting busier. During the wait, we did get to watch his speech to the plenary session on one of the closed-circuit televisions.

I also watched the speeches of Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, but I admit I didn't pay attention to any of the other world leaders. Shortly after Obama addressed the conference, it was announced that our event was moved back again to 14:30 and we dispersed. But not long after that, our Deputy Chief of Mission saw me walking the halls and said it had been moved forward again and we should gather immediately.

We dodged through the crowd to reach our designated meeting point, where Secret Service agents conducted us through a labyrinth of back rooms and kitchens to a small meeting room where there was a lectern on the other side of a rope. After we had arranged ourselves, the Ambassador came in, followed by the leader of the free world. Following his short speech, he made sure to shake the hand of each person in the room, including mine. Everyone applauded and wished him success with the climate negotiations. Barack Obama is a truly inspiring leader, and I hope I will be able to live up to the high expectations that he has for those of us who work for him.