WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 13: Politics overrode statesmanship in keeping President Bill Clinton away from this week's formal handover of the Panama Canal, a symbol of the emergence of the United States as a world power this century, analysts and historians have said.They said the White House shunned the event fearing Republicans could use the surrender of the canal as campaign ammunition against vice-president Al Gore's presidential bid next year.Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was to represent Clinton, decided on Friday that she would not attend tomorrow's ceremony in Panama marking the transfer of ownership and operation of the 80-km canal and lock system linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.Former president Jimmy Carter, who signed the 1977 treaties relinquishing US control of the canal on the last day of the century, will head a US delegation that includes the secretaries of transport, Rodney Slater, and trade, William Daley, the White House said on Saturday.``Clinton should attend. Agreat nation doesn't turn its back, especially when there is so much to commemorate and be proud of,'' said Historian David Mccullough.``Instead, they are dropping the key in the box and slipping away in the night. It's a mistake and a great shame,'' said Mccullough, author of ``Truman'' and ``The path between the seas: The creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914.''The Clinton administration has not risen to the occasion in style, unlike Britain, which was represented by Prince Charles and Prime Minister Tony Blair when it turned over Hong Kong to China in 1997, he said in a telephone interview.The Panama Canal was the largest, most difficult and costliest undertaking by the United States outside its national borders and embarked the nation on its role of global involvement.In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt sailed on the battleship Louisiana to see the works for himself and was photographed at the controls of a giant steam shovel. It was the first trip abroad by a sitting USpresident.At the close of the century, tomorrow's ceremony in Panama was an opportunity to show US leadership in establishing improved relations with Latin America based on trust and trade partnerships rather than ``Big Stick'' policies of the past, analysts said.
