The Adventures of CosmoGuy: US Ambassador to New Zealand (and Samoa!)

Christmas Greetings My Leader,

It is I, your intrepid ambassador to New Zealand (and Samoa)! Yes, Scott Brown, your most grateful of servants. I know that you haven’t replied to any of my monthly reports since I took up residence here in June which is most likely because you are busy… So here is a ‘Christmas Wrap Up’ of all the awesome ambassador things I’ve been doing over the last six months. I can promise you that the Kiwis love me and greatness is being made!

When I arrived here, I opened your secret MAGA envelope which was waiting at the Russian Embassy in Wellington (did you know that? New Zealand’s capital is called Wellington? Just like the location of my favorite eatery – Kabab Corner – in Boston!). With eyes pricking with pride, I read out Steve Bannon’s secret instructions:

“Dear [Name of campaign contributor inserted here],

Your task is to MAGA in another part of the world! We have investigated New Zealand and found that even though it is a long way away, lot’s of unhappy liberals are fantasizing about moving there to escape our greatness.  Your mission is to destroy all hope of New Zealand surviving the greatness of our first 30 years in office. Your instructions will arrive monthly once Jared has fine-tuned the MPEGA ‘Make Planet Earth Great Again’ plan.

Good luck,

Steve (on behalf of Don)”

This was clearly tricky diplomatic code that I found a little bit hard to understand, so I asked my chief attaché (a really friendly old Kiwi guy called James) what it meant by ‘MPEGA’. He replied: ‘It means that you are the perfect candidate for this position, Sir’. James is a great guy. Very affirming. I asked him how Secretary Rex Tillerson’s visit went earlier that month. “Perfectly Apt Sir”, he said.

I also found a letter waiting from a previous ambassador – Carol Moseley Braun – who was here from 1999-2001. James said she was very popular and her letter was very helpful.

Dear Scott,

I heard with interest that you are going to be the Ambassador to New Zealand (and Samoa). I hope you enjoy settling into the embassy in the suburb of Woburn. Trust James, he is a top guy. And don’t imagine for a moment that being Ambassador to New Zealand (and Samoa) is a good springboard for running for President. I tried that in 2004 and it didn’t work.

Good luck, and trust the Kiwis, they’ll always tell you the truth.

Best wishes, Carol.

The Embassy is in Woburn! This is getting freaky. My second favorite place to eat is the Pintxo Pincho Tapas Bar in Woburn, MA!

July:

I haven’t yet got the next installment of Jared’s plan to MPEGA, so I asked James what his advice was. He suggested an Embassy Xmas Party! Cool idea, because he explained to me that because New Zealand is in the SOUTHERN hemisphere, Xmas is in July. Makes total sense!

The party was themed to the Lord of the Rings. I don’t know much about it as I was busy Making Massachusetts Great Again at the time the movies came out, so I got the office staff to advise me which character I should dress as. James suggested I dress as someone called Grima who was the faithful ambassador to the great wizard Saruman. This sounds perfect! I know that you like some of those grand wizards down south and apparently – according to my staff – Saruman is really like you Don! He’s very powerful and intelligent, has a great army, used to be the LOTR equivalent of a Democrat before realizing they were a pack of losers and went over to the GOP. He’s also been improving the local landscape by harvesting forests and setting up a strong industrial base for his war machine. He even has a huge tower that everyone else envies. Grima sounds a cool guy too.  Very influential with the folks of Rohan where he is ambassador, but, hint hint, he does get regular instructions from Saruman. Not even the greatest ambassador can MPEGA if he doesn’t get instructions from his awesome wizard!

August:

No MPEGA instructions yet, but cool stuff is happening here! I overheard James and his colleagues referring to me as ‘CosmoGuy’. I initially thought they might have heard about my money-raising ventures during my college years, but when I asked James he looked blank and explained that this was my NZ Secret Service codename and that in NZ, ‘Cosmo’ is short for ‘cosmically awesome’. These Kiwis are just a little bit cosmically awesome too!

In the weekends, James encouraged me to impress the regular Kiwis by doing stuff in a MPEGA kind of way. So, I’ve been going up the road to a ranchette where I have stabled my appaloosa called Pinky. I ride bare-back wearing only a pair of buckskin chaps – just like I used to when I wanted to blow off steam in the 2010 senate race in Massachusetts, or take some nice snaps to send to Uncle Vlad. James commented that this was likely to create ‘a singular impression’ on Kiwis.

September:

Still no instructions, and all my US staff have now resigned. My Kiwi staff tell me that this is totally normal, and that they’ll be more than happy to help me MPEGA while we wait for replacements (and Jared’s instructions).

October:

Don, get down here! There are total babes in this part of the world. But first I had to deal with some confusion because I am actually the Ambassador to New Zealand AND Samoa. Originally I thought that they were the same country, but they AREN’T and I got to visit Samoa as part of my job! While this point of confusion kept me pondering for the whole plane flight to Apia, events on the ground more than compensated. This is a part of the world where I WISH people knew more about CosmoGuy’s prior life! I made friends will all the local girls and even suggested that some of them apply to ‘work’ at Mar a Lago. Wink wink Don! There was a moment of tension when it looked like a reporter was going to blow out of all proporations this innocent discussion of the kinds of the appropriate work for girls of this level of babe-ness, but James said that he would take care of the press. Such a helpful guy James.

November:

Still no instructions, and the replacement US staff still haven’t arrived, but James is doing a superb job of helping me with the nuances of foreign policy down here. And what a vital month it has been! I was responsible for providing the NZ briefing for you – my fearless leader – on what you might do at the APEC meeting in Vietnam. This was extremely important in case you met Jacinda Ardern, the leader of Team Red and the new Prime Minister of New Zealand (but, confusingly, not Samoa!). I was wondering what to say, as the fact that I have no embassy staff means I still don’t know everything there is to know about New Zealand, but James tipped me off that the New Zealand Prime Minister would secretly love to be mistaken as ‘Justin Trudeau’s wife’. Genius suggestion James — who wouldn’t! I sent off a diplomatic cable to Rex to tee up this brilliant piece of ‘diplomatic chit chat’. I’m sure it made a lasting impression!

December:

It is a bad month for US Ambassadors around the world. I feel for my buddies. My old bestie Nikki Haley is getting plenty of grief for telling the UN how it should run the world. James suggested that Nikki might be thinking of running for President! Didn’t she get her letter from Carol Moseley Braun? I thought Ambassadors couldn’t possibly run for President. Can they?