Business at the old stand.

• Position: Clinton endorses Bush foreign policy - Editorial

Even before he took the Presidential oath of office, Bill Clinton sent a series of unmistakable messages to the nation and the world about the foreign policy to be pursued by his new Administration: It would be the same as the foreign policy pursued by the old Administration of George Bush. There would be "continuity" and "consistency" and "steadfastness" and "firmness," make no mistake about that.

The outgoing President was gratified, and said so.

The mass-media pundits, who had given their unswerving support to every foreign-policy blunder and military misadventure of the Reagan-Bush years, were pleased to note that business would be conducted at the old stand, and they complimented Clinton on his good sense.

The foreign leaders who had hitched their countries' fortunes to dutiful conformity with Washington's instructions were profoundly relieved, and they assured their peoples that all would be well.

But it won't be.

Those Americans who believed - naively, in our view - that Clinton's inauguration would usher in a new, post-Cold War era in American foreign policy have already had many of their illusions shattered. For example:

[Para] Clinton, who had, during the Presidential campaign, properly denounced Bush's cruel and illegal treatment of Haitian refugees seeking asylum in the United States, announced a week before the Inauguration that he would leave Bush's policy intact: Haitians would be discouraged from leaving their brutally impoverished and savagely misruled country, and those who did attempt to flee to these shores would be intercepted and returned without even the benefit of an immigration hearing. Even more objectionable than the betrayal of Clinton's campaign promise to deal fairly with the Haitians was the ugly hypocrisy in which his reversal was cloaked: He claimed to be acting out of concern for the safety of the refugees who put to sea in rickety boats to escape their dreadful fate. Let's be clear about this: Haitian refugees are dark-skinned and poor. The Bush Administration decided there are already too many dark-skinned, poor people in the United States. The Clinton Administration agrees. It's a matter of racism, not compassion.

[Para] In a last-ditch attempt to pander to the yellow-ribbon crowd and salvage a bit of his tattered reputation, Bush launched a new series of air attacks on Iraq, managing as usual to destroy civilian targets and civilian lives...