Washington — They're coming to America. From Israel and Indonesia, China and the Congo, world leaders and officials of lesser rank are descending on Washington in a diplomatic race to get on good terms with President Bush's new administration and figure out what he's up to.
Foreign leaders calling on a new White House occupant is an old tradition. But Bush is on a record-setting pace.
By month's end, he will have shared handshakes and views on his home turf with more counterparts than Presidents Reagan, Bush senior and Clinton did in their first 10 weeks in office.
The steady parade of presidents and prime ministers appears to belie the widespread notion that Bush is uninterested in foreign policy.
As the president himself put it Tuesday, "We'll have a very aggressive foreign policy, witnessed by the fact that I met with, gosh, I don't know how many foreign leaders so far."
Bush went on to note that he's scheduled to receive the prime minister of Ireland on Friday, Japan on Monday, Israel on Tuesday and China's vice premier next Thursday.
But Bush's is a come-see-me brand of foreign policy, at least so far, that at times evokes hints of imperial haughtiness. Both he and Secretary of State Colin Powell have ventured abroad far less than almost all of their recent predecessors had at this juncture, according to official State Department records.
Bush's conduct of foreign policy sends the message that he is paying attention, but to him, "It's a second-tier concern. I'm putting it on the back burner," said Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at the University of New Orleans.
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