Washington ? The distance the current Democratic presidential contenders have strayed from the Clinton formula for winning the White House became startlingly clear last week with their reaction to President Bush’s decision to remove the tariffs on imported steel he had imposed 21 months before.

The Democrats had a free shot at Bush for inconsistency, and most of them took it. But every e-mailed comment I saw from them said or implied that they would not have responded as Bush did when the World Trade Organization ruled that the tariff was unjustified and European nations threatened to slap $2.2 billion of retaliatory levies on U.S. products.

The party whose last president fought against protectionism and for international agreements to liberalize trade has moved a long way in the other direction.

For some of the candidates, this was a no-brainer. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri opposed NAFTA and the normalization of trade relations with China during the time Bill Clinton was president — a stand that has earned him support from most of the major industrial unions this year. His comment that “the president’s action today demonstrates a callous disregard for the workers and the communities whose jobs and livelihoods have been decimated by unfair competition” was entirely predictable.

So was the similar blast from Rep. Dennis Kucinich. His home state of Ohio is a major steel producer, and many thought that Bush’s original decision to impose stiff tariffs on foreign steel was a bid to strengthen his re-election hand precisely in such steel-making states as Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

But consider Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a consistent supporter of liberal trade policies throughout his career and a backer of the major trade agreements. Rather than reiterate those beliefs, he said, “We need a manufacturing plan with a spine of steel to promote American businesses and workers, not a manufactured plan that bends with every gust of wind.”

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who has been steadily tacking away from his earlier support of NAFTA and free trade as he tries to head off Gephardt in Iowa, went further than Lieberman. “The president’s decision to lift the steel tariffs early is just another example of this administration playing politics with people’s lives,” Dean said. “When he imposed the tariffs, the president’s rhetoric suggested that he actually cared about American steelworkers, their families and the communities in which they live. If that were the case, he would not be lifting them today.”

Within days after this bow to protectionism, Dean was endorsed by former Vice President Al Gore, the same man who had defended NAFTA and free trade in a notable debate with Ross Perot — another sign of the seismic shift among Democrats on this issue.

But the most interesting case is retired Gen. Wesley Clark. He is the favorite of many Clintonians, including Mickey Kantor, a key operative in Clinton’s 1992 campaign and later his top trade official. Just a few weeks ago, I attended a news conference where Kantor joined two others who had served as special trade representatives in Republican administrations, Carla Hills and Clayton Yeutter, in urging the Bush administration to take bolder steps to eliminate trade barriers. Kantor said specifically that while he thought at the time the steel tariffs were imposed that they were justified, it was imperative that they be lifted now — as Bush subsequently did.

But Gen. Clark obviously did not consult Kantor, a senior adviser, on this question. In a most peculiar fashion, Clark first issued a statement that accused Bush of “taking his cues” from “steel industry executives” he had been with “at a fund-raiser in Pittsburgh.” That made no sense, because the steel executives wanted the tariffs to remain in effect. So 26 minutes later came a correction from Clark’s Little Rock headquarters, eliminating the bogus charge and complaining that Bush “still has no strategy to help the 2.6 million manufacturing workers who have lost their jobs.”

Those job losses are real and have been under way for years. The Bush White House, with its politically driven and inconsistent actions, in effect has confessed that it has no answers to the problem. The Democrats are more than eager to exploit the situation and offer, with varying degrees of conviction and coherence, formulas they claim will help revive the manufacturing sector.

What is being lost in the debate is the conviction that led Clinton — and his Republican predecessors — to place the United States on the side of reducing trade barriers and expanding international markets. This issue is a lot more serious than either party’s approach to it would ever let you know.

David Broder is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.