Texas Toast

The LA Times is reporting this morning on a joint statement being issued by 26 former senior diplomats and officials calling for the removal of George W. Bush from the White House, arguing (correctly) that his inane and myopic foreign policy has done great harm to our national security:

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, plans to issue a joint statement this week 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, according to several of those who signed the document.

"It is clear that the statement calls for the defeat of the administration," said William C. Harrop, the ambassador to Israel under President Bush's father and one of the group's principal organizers

The White House wouldn't comment until they'd seen the statement, but we can be sure of their tactical response: these are political hacks, Kerry loyalists, fools, charlatans, Bush-haters, traitors, or simply idiots who don't know what they're talking about. Twenty-six does seem, however, too large a number to go about trying to destroy these folks individually, as is Rovian par for this course (i.e., Richard Clarke, Joe WIlson (and his wife), Paul O'Neil, etc.), so expect a blanket dismissal. And much more idiocy on par with remarks made by Satan's own Cliff May:

"There's no question those who were responsible for policies pre-9/11 are denying what seems as the obvious — that those policies were inadequate," said Cliff May, president of the conservative advocacy group Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

"This seems like a statement from 9/10 people [who don't see] the importance of 9/11 and the way that should have changed our thinking."

In other words, they're simply covering their asses because all of them, collectively and individually, are responsible for September 11th. And then there was this wholly indicative statement (unnamed source):

One senior Republican strategist familiar with White House thinking said he did not think the group was sufficiently well-known to create significant political problems for the president.

The strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said the signatories were making an argument growing increasingly obsolete as Bush leans more on the international community for help in Iraq.

Oh yeah. I forgot.