An inappropriate sampeah

Sampeah? From this article at Investors Business Daily:

On his trip to Cambodia, a country he claimed didn't deserve a visit due to its strongman government, first lady Bun Rany greeted Obama with a traditional "sampeah" pressed-hands greeting reserved for servants, a little dig that was probably lost on him but not to Asians.

The whole trip was like that -- a Potemkin journey:

Obama's Southeast Asia Trip All Style, No Substance
So amid all the colorful and flirty photos from President Obama's first tour of Southeast Asia, what did he actually accomplish?

More:

In his tour of Burma, billed as an historic first visit since Burma's 2007 move to democracy, it was clear he was in way over his head, even on small things. Obama repeatedly referred to the country's Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader Aung San Suu Kyi as Aung Yan Suu Kyi, an astonishing error given her global fame.

He also bungled the norms of Burmese polite address, calling Thein Sein, the nation's leader "President Sein," an error comparable to addressing Cambodia's Pol Pot as Mr. Pot.

But he also undermined his supposed democracy mission, first by telling the Burmese leaders that he too wished he could govern without opposition, calling into question whether he himself believed in the representative government he was advocating.

It didn't help that he ignored the real heroes who helped push Burma toward a more open system � President and Mrs. Bush, as well as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Sens. John McCain and Mitch McConnell, seeming to take credit for it himself.

A bit more:

No substance, no influence. Nothing underlined this quite like the lack of crowds greeting Obama in all three nations. When a leader's visit is cause for hope and a catalyst for change � think Pope John Paul II's 1978 Poland visit � crowds turn out. Obama, supposedly representing the greatest nation on earth, couldn't draw so much as an Occupy-sized crowd. Nor did he draw respect.

I would not go to see him if he visited my local community. His ideology and ignorance is very much on my radar screen but Obama as a man is not. He is an ineffectual low-grade manager with a Marxist bent. He is a shadow president controlled by a handful of progressive ideologues.