Dear Friends, A friend and former colleague in the Foreign Service, Kevin McGuire, some time ago drafted a statement of support for Sen. Barack Obama and began to ask retired Foreign Service officers if they would sign it. So far 334 of us have done so, including by my count, 66 former American ambassadors... The Foreign Service of the United States is our country's career diplomatic and consular service. We staff both the State Department in Washington and our embassies and consulates abroad... In the Foreign Service we serve the President and the Constitution faithfully -- I served under seven Presidents, finally as ambassador to Somalia under President Reagan -- and we do our best by our country. We do not speak lightly about national security. Five of my friends and colleagues were killed by terrorists. More American ambassadors have died violent deaths since World War II than our admirals and generals combined. Two other friends and colleagues were kidnapped by terrorists, but survived. I have backed Sen. Barack Obama since I wrote, in early 2007, the review of his second book that I hope you will read at The Cal Review. He is a prudent manager, a professor of constitutional law, and a moral and upright man with sound judgment. I agree with Colin Powell that Sen. Barack Obama is fully qualified to be commander in chief. He understands the problems that we face at home and abroad, and he will begin -- though it will take years -- to resolve them. He has a sturdy and experienced running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, whom I have admired greatly since I first met him in 1981. Sen. Barack Obama is running against a man whose chief virtue seems to be that he withstood five years of arduous imprisonment and torture and, since he could not equal the Navy record of his father and grandfather, went into politics after he married a rich wife. Sen. John McCain has changed his positions as the years have progressed, but he has always supported the super-rich as our society has divided. He is the candidate of a party whose last candidates -- George W. Bush and Richard Cheney -- inherited a budgetary surplus, sent us to war under false pretenses, and ran the country into the ground. Sen. John McCain has chosen as his running mate and possible successor a woman who backed hundreds of Federal millions for the "bridge to nowhere" before she opposed it (and then kept the money) -- whom an independent investigator in Alaska finds guilty of ethics laws in the Troopergate scandal--and who knows so little about our Constitution that she says the Vice President is in charge of the Senate... Sen. Barack Obama did not approve this message. It's all mine. Regards to all-- Amb. Peter Bridges Posted October 26, 2008 | 08:14 PM (EST)Amb. Peter Bridges
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