TWO YEARS IN TOWN — U.S. Ambassador DAVID COHEN has pulled off a herculean feat. Cohen, an intensely political animal with a long history in the Democratic Party, has lasted two years as America's top diplomat in Canada without violating the Hatch Act — a federal law designed to prevent civil servants from engaging in political activity. A recent test: Cohen once chaired the University of Pennsylvania board of trustees. But in an interview with Playbook marking his two-year anniversary at the embassy on Sussex Drive, Cohen mostly refrained from commenting on UPenn President LIZ MAGILL's resignation. He spoke candidly about what he misses about life before diplomacy, how he can do a job that studiously avoids politics (most of the time), and a presidential election year's impact on his ability to keep the attention of Washington power brokers. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What do you miss about your old life? I haven't really missed practising law here. I haven't really missed being in the corporate world. I have missed politics. I love politics. Because of the Hatch Act, I really don't have anything to do with politics. I try not even to talk about it. I've learned that things that I say can be misinterpreted to be official government positions, as opposed to [personal] opinions. The thing I really miss, that I did not fully appreciate, is Philadelphia. I miss my friends. Philadelphia just went through a very interesting mayor's race. I had a number of friends who were running. They all wanted to talk to me. They all wanted my advice. And I was barely following the race. Of course, I couldn't give them advice. There are other interesting things. As you can imagine, my email is blowing up with press [reports] about the Penn situation and antisemitism. I literally have received eight to 10 emails in the last 48 hours. And I'd gotten a lot before that. I'm not sure what I would say. But I feel badly about what's going on at Penn, and I feel disconnected. That's the price of this job. I'm not depressed about it, but I have to be completely focused on being the U.S. ambassador to Canada. I don't let there be room in my brain to consider issues that I previously would have been pretty deeply involved in if I was still in Philadelphia. In two years, I've been to Philadelphia three times for a total of five days. Almost exclusively for medical appointments. Annual checkups and physicals. That's basically all I do in Philadelphia. How difficult is it not to be campaigning for Joe Biden right now? One thing that is hard is my absolute inability to be involved in politics in any way. I try to be incredibly scrupulous about this. I understand the reasons for it. I've been given a lot of legal advice on the Hatch Act in my career. The Hatch Act was a really smart piece of legislation. This is a time when a lot of my friends in the United States are starting to put together fundraisers for Joe Biden. If I were not in this job, and I were back in the United States, I'd be very actively engaged in that. It's something I'm pretty good at. And it bothers me a little bit that I can't do it. But I can't do it. I'm still naive enough, or I'm still pure enough, to believe that the better job that Joe Biden is perceived to be doing by the public, the better position he'll be in electorally. I'm allowed to work on the substance. I'm allowed to work on implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act. I'm allowed to work on the implementation of the [CHIPS and Science Act]. It's exciting to work on those landmark pieces of legislation in a country and [with] an ally that is so close, and so closely aligned to the United States, because I think we can really move the needle on climate change, on energy transformation, in a way that will reflect well on the United States, and will reflect well on the president. As Washington's obsession with the 2024 campaign ramps up, do you find it more challenging to get people's attention? One of the strengths I bring to the table as ambassador are my contacts in Washington, in the federal government, in the Biden administration. And at least so far, I have had no issue getting the attention of the people whose attention I need to get in the administration and the executive branch of the government. I know them. I have long-standing relationships with them. My phone calls are returned. My emails are returned. And I have a sufficiently frequent interaction with them that I am not experiencing a problem getting the attention of the highest-ranking people in the federal government on issues that are important to Canada. | 
