Ambassador Caroline Kennedy Wows Japan!

“When she took her short buggy ride to meet the imperial family, there were thousands of people outside on the route cheering her on. Every new ambassador takes that route, but no one’s gotten the reception that she received.”

-Ambassador Walter Mondale

Japan is use to having American political heavy weights be their Ambassador. A list of former Ambassador's is like a 'who's who' of American politics. The island nation has come to expect the best from America and it takes a lot to make them star struck.

That is until the new Ambassador Caroline Kennedy arrived in Tokyo.

Politico in an article by Alexander Burns reports that the newly arrived Ambassador has become a 'rock star' in the land of the rising sun.

The soft-spoken presidential scion, who four years ago this month toured upstate New York in a short and ill-fated bid for the U.S. Senate, has swept with force into her newest public role as President Barack Obama’s ambassador in Japan. And if the iconic daughter of American political royalty showed herself to be deeply uncomfortable as a glad-handing pol, she’s on her way to becoming something of a rock star in the more dignified world of diplomacy.

She has been swarmed by well-wishers in her public appearances, including Japanese men and women who offered their sympathies during the November anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s death. The Japanese TV network NHK delivered a live broadcast of her first appearance at Japan’s Imperial Palace, according to the AP, as throngs of onlookers crowded the streets. When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appointed Japan’s first female prime ministerial aide, his office mentioned Kennedy’s role in Japan as an inspiration.

Kennedy has been awed by the reception, according to her friends and political associates. Yet far from being overwhelmed, Kennedy has eased into the role of ambassador far more smoothly and naturally than she did in her last high-profile adventure, as a contender for Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat.

She is no longer a halting vote-seeker competing for the endorsement of then-Gov. David Paterson and enduring the barbs of the Empire State media. A onetime student of Japanese art who visited Japan on her honeymoon, Kennedy appears far more at ease navigating the corridors of global power than the rope lines of Western New York; she has sought out the advice of multiple predecessors in the ambassador’s job, including former Vice President Walter Mondale, and hosted Vice President Joe Biden during his recent trip to the region.

“She’s going to be enormously well received not only by the Japanese government, but by the Japanese people. She’s a serious person,” said Mondale, who was struck by the outpouring of public enthusiasm around Kennedy’s visit with the imperial family: “When she took her short buggy ride to meet the imperial family, there were thousands of people outside on the route cheering her on. Every new ambassador takes that route, but no one’s gotten the reception that she received.”

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Kennedy, often described as a deeply private person, has embraced the very public aspects of the ambassador’s job. Unlike the Senate bid that plainly showed Kennedy to be ill at ease in the role of a retail candidate, observers say her public tasks in Japan — probably closer to the activities of a visiting head of state than to those of a political aspirant — have been exhilarating.

Within days of taking up her post, she gave an interview to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s highest-circulation newspaper, and visited areas stricken by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In her first public speech, on Nov. 27, Kennedy emphasized the gravity of her position and her connections to the highest-level members of the Obama administration.

She alluded to her political lineage, recalling her father’s efforts at promoting the U.S.-Japan relationship and recalling a visit to Japan with her late uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy. And Kennedy thanked the nation for its support on the 50th anniversary of her father’s death.