when New Zealanders perform on the global stage, partisanship and parochialism tend to be put aside.
It is a matter of national pride.
Pitting ourselves against the world unites us as nothing else, and this applies in politics as much as it does in sport or culture.
It should come as little surprise then that Prime Minister John Key's big OE in New York has been in substantial measure uncritically lauded as a triumph, and the substance - actual achievements - largely glossed over.
That is not to say the trip has been anything other than a success, merely to point out that for any objective assessment, success needs to be measured against aims - either stated or implied.
One of those was profile raising, both New Zealand's and Mr Key's.
In this respect the trip has been an undoubted success.
The exposure for the country in appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman, measured in terms of viewing figures for the United States market - which Tourism New Zealand is always seeking new ways to target - was certainly significant, and cheap.
As Mr Key said following the appearance: "Tourism New Zealand looked at advertising on Letterman and the reason we didn't do that was that a 30-second slot was in the millions of dollars."
His appearance meant the host, David Letterman, spent about 10 minutes in all talking about the country and that "just raises the profile".
The quality of that profile is open to closer scrutiny.
The "Top 10" segment on the Letterman show, if not read out by Mr Letterman himself, is usually given over to a celebrity with something to sell - a book, a film, music - and there was a danger that Mr Key might have come across as just another salesman.
In the event, he was coherent, genial and a good sport - without quite demolishing the notion, engendered by his ostensible excitement, that he is still a Prime Minister in short pants.
Adding to the cache of profile-raising occasions, there was the Prime Minister's ringing of the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, an event also apparently watched by millions.
There were meetings with former President Bill Clinton, Nato Secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former prime minister now head of the United Nations Development Programme Helen Clark, UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, and a couple of chats with President Barack Obama himself.
In terms of establishing or consolidating contacts, arguably all these meetings and occasions would have been valuable, although "raising the profile" of a country in the minds of other world leaders, and of television audiences, does not of itself accord that country privileged status.
It would be naive to imagine that it did.
It is in the more formal arenas that serious influence is to be earned and awarded and Mr Key's speech to the United Nations General Assembly is likely to be a lasting legacy of the trip.
In particular, there was his announcement of New Zealand's candidature for a seat on the UN Security Council for 2015-2016.
If successful, New Zealand would join the five permanent members - United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and the United States - and nine other temporary representatives in dealing with the world's most pressing security issues.
One of these, nuclear disarmament, heightened by new revelations about Iran's enrichment programme, gave Mr Key a platform to emphasise New Zealand's nuclear-free credentials, but also, subsequently, to appear statesman-like on the issue.
Likewise his warning that the major thrust of this year's assembly must be meeting the challenge of climate change - and that the world could not afford to fail on the upcoming talks in Copenhagen.
The ironies of such certainty will not be lost those who recall the National Party's dalliance with Act New Zealand in questioning, as recently as the beginning of the year, the science of climate change; nor on those critics convinced the Government's new ETS scheme will do little to lessen the impact of industrial and agricultural emissions.
It is in this latter arena that Mr Key can claim genuine kudos, however.
For although the details are yet sketchy, his championing of a New Zealand initiative to ramp up research into agricultural emissions, and his achieving an indication from the United States and India of their support, could be described as a genuine coup.
Should the proposal gain legs, in both international and domestic circles Mr Key will be widely seen to have grown into long trousers.
