Scripted visit to Myanmar may help build presidential legacy for Obama
Despite a few awkward moments, the Myanmar trip may be key to building a presidential legacy
It won't be mistaken for a Nixon-goes-to-China kind of moment.
But US President Barack Obama's visit to Myanmar on Monday sometimes felt like a return to an earlier era of presidential diplomacy - his aides were determined to make sure no one missed its historic significance.
The trip was carefully choreographed to highlight what the White House sees as a first-term foreign policy success for a newly re-elected president whose record on the world stage shows few triumphs so far.
There was the cautious first meeting with reformist President Thein Sein to keep him on track, landmark talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and a speech at a university steeped in the country's turbulent political history.
But there were also a few unscripted parts that underscored how strange it was for Obama to be fêted by cheering crowds lining the streets of Yangon little more than a year after ordering aides to explore rapprochement with the long-shunned Southeast Asian country after decades of military rule.
On the fly, Obama decided to make an unscheduled stop at the Shwedagon Pagoda where he, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and their entourage went barefoot as part of Buddhist tradition at the revered shrine.
Even Obama's Secret Service agents were left scurrying shoeless and sockless, talking quietly into their radios, as they secured the area.
