Guess They're Off the Christmas Card List

A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, are going public this Wednesday with a joint statement arguing that President George W. Bush has damaged America's national security and should be defeated in November. The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, will explicitly condemn Bush's foreign policy. (Advance word of this came out in the L.A. Times yesterday.)

Those signing the document include 20 former U.S. ambassadors, appointed by presidents of both parties, to countries including Israel, the former Soviet Union, and Saudi Arabia. Others are senior State Department officials from the Carter, Reagan, and Clinton administrations and former military leaders, including retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East under President Bush's father and former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill A. McPeak.