Obama hosts South East Asian leaders at desert retreat

President Barack Obama looks to put domestic issues aside and cap his long courtship with fast-rising South East Asian nations tomorrow, hosting leaders at a California desert retreat.
Obama welcomes representatives from 10 ASEAN countries to Sunnylands, a secluded 200 acre resort beloved by Frank Sinatra and US presidents since Dwight Eisenhower.
The visitors may have preferred the cachet of a White House visit and an Oval Office photo-op. But, like his predecessors, Obama is fond of the dry air, clean skies and the verdant fairways of this golfing Mecca.
Before sitting down at the summit table, Obama spent two days on the links.

0 The White House sees this summit and the prestigious venue as an opportunity to show ASEAN's importance before Obama leaves office in January 2017.
Presidential trips to Vietnam and Laos are expected later this year to reinforce the point.

They will have to try, however -- perhaps in vain -- to prevent the event from being overshadowed by the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.
The leaders of Vietnam and Myanmar, facing their own domestic challenges, have dropped out, electing to send deputies instead.
The ASEAN bloc was once an afterthought in American policy -- too small, too diverse and too dysfunctional to be an effective player.

But Obama -- who spent a few of his formative years in Indonesia -- has made it a fulcrum for his much-vaunted "pivot to Asia.