Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy includes more than 650 foreign affairs specialists in the United States and allied countries. They have signed an open letter opposing the Bush administration's foreign policy and calling urgently for a change of course. From their announcement:

The letter asserts that current U.S. foreign policy harms the struggle against Islamist terrorists, pointing to a series of "blunders" by the Bush team in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. "We're advising the administration, which is already in a deep hole, to stop digging," said Professor Richard Samuels of M.I.T.

The scholars who signed the letter are from over 150 colleges and universities in 40 states, from California to Florida, Texas to Maine. They include many of the nation's most prominent experts on world politics, including former staff members at the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council, as well as six of the last seven Presidents of the American Political Science Association.

"I think it is telling that so many specialists on international relations, who rarely agree on anything, are unified in their position on the high costs that the U.S. is incurring from this war," said Professor Robert Keohane of Duke University.

The text of the letter, a list of signers and details about the group are available here. Bonassasus blog adds some context.

If only every city had one.....Here's why they are doing it

As citizens alarmed by the actions of the current administration, we are making the case for change. We are not interested in personal assaults. Many of us find Bush a likeable guy. But his administration, including Rove, Cheney, and Ashcroft, is not conservative; we think they are far right and dangerous.

A surprising number of Republicans, independents, and government officials agree. We want a responsible and accurate national debate on this proposition.

Bump and Update: Here is the latest total from Editor and Publisher.com. The (B) is for papers who endorsed Bush in 2000, the (G) for those who endorsed Gore. Daily Kos points out:

...no Gore paper has endorsed Bush thus far. Meanwhile, three Bush papers have switched sides -- the Oregonian, the Seattle Times, and Connecticut's The Day. The (B) is for papers who endorsed Bush in 2000, the (G) for those who endorsed Gore.

JOHN KERRY
The Atlanta Journal Constitution (G): 418,323
The Philadelphia Inquirer (G): 387.692
Detroit Free Press (G): 354,581
The Oregonian (Portland) (B): 342,040
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (G): 281,198
The Seattle Times (B): 237,303
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (G): 150,901
The Philadelphia Daily News: 139,983
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) (G): 109,592
Portland Press Herald (Maine) (G): 73,211
The Day (New London, Conn.) (B): 39,553
Total Pro-Kerry Daily Circ: 2,534,377

President Bush Does Not Represent All Coloradoans: There will be a silent, civilian Bush protest today at 3pm when he appears at a last-minute campaign stop at Red Rocks Amphitheater.

Bush will ask Colorado for “four more years.” The media needs to see the faces of many Colorado citizens who know that four more years of Bush’s environmental policies would be devastating to our state’s most beautiful places like Red Rocks Park.

Please join a large, quickly-forming coalition of environmentalists, pro-choice women, people of color, gays and lesbians, musicians and everyday Colorado citizens to march near the park in silent protest.

No signs, no yelling, no exchanges with the Bush supporters - just a peaceful demonstration of hundreds of patriots wearing red, white, and blue, who cannot abide Bush policies in the backdrop of one of our most beloved Colorado parks.

Everybody knows Bush has an abysmal record on the environment. Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and Eugene Weekley lay it out for us in article called Bush's Crimes Against Nature:

The hundreds of major environmental roll-backs promoted by the Bush administration over the last three and a half years are part of a deliberate attempt to eviscerate 30 years of environmental law.

After a blistering but accurate review of Bush's discombobulated performance at the Miami Debate, Philiop Gourevitch, writing in the new issue of The New Yorker notes:

Kerry is offering himself as the candidate of change--”truth vs. unreality, a fresh start vs. more of the same. We need friends in this dangerous world, he says, and we need diplomacy to try and disarm and contain our enemies lest it should be our burden, otherwise, to destroy them. What Kerry doesn't say --and cannot say --is that when it comes to real threats, like North Korea and Iran, Bush's fixation with Iraq may already have made it too late for any American President to find a peaceful solution.

One of TalkLeft's regular readers, a nationally prominent and well-respected D.C. lawyer, suggested we point out another problem with Bush's reference to the Dred Scott decision during Friday's debate. Bush said, when asked what kind of Supreme Court Justice he would appoint:

"Another example [of a judge making decisions based on personal opinion rather than strict construction] would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges years ago said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution said. The Constitution of the United States says we're all - you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America."

Our reader points out:

Let's set aside the fact that this passage is almost entirely incoherent, and assume that what Bush was trying to say was that Justice Taney, in holding that slaves were personal property of which their owners could not be deprived by Act of Congress, was acting in accord with his personal beliefs (he was unquestionably pro-slavery) in opposition to the Constitution. The problem, of course, is that the Constitution clearly recognized the existence of slavery, in the infamous "three-fifths" clause which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportioning House seats (Art. I, sec. 2, cl. 3); in the prohibition on regulation of the slave trade prior to 1808 - but the authorization of taxes on the importation of slaves (Art. I, sec. 9, cl. 1); and most notably in the requirements that states deliver fugitive slaves to their master (Art. IV, sec. 2, cl. 3).

In fact, if President Bush were correct, the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, would have been wholly unnecessary. It's nice that our President at least doesn't want to appoint justices who favor slavery; it's a little distressing that this is the only threshold he seems to set.

The Associated Press reports that Muslims could prove key in choosing our next president:

Muslims in New Jersey and across the country say they support the president on moral issues like abortion and gay marriage, but strongly favor Kerry because they oppose the war in Iraq and feel he'll end it sooner than Bush will. They also support Kerry because they think he has a stronger commitment to civil rights in the United States.

In an election that could once again be razor-close, the support of Muslims - whose estimated numbers nationwide range from 1.2 million to 7 million - could be crucial. The Bush and Kerry campaigns have courted Muslim voters, particularly in swing states like Ohio and Florida, as well as Michigan, which has the nation's largest Arab-American population.

"I can't see how any self-respecting American - forget about Arab-American or Muslim - can vote for President Bush, unless you're a total kook," said Hani Awadallah, president of the Arab-American Civic Organization.

Of all people who may not vote for Bush, former Congressman Bob Barr? Check out his latest article:

Now we have the election of 2004. For the first time in my voting life, the choice in the race for president isn't so clear And, among true conservatives, I'm not alone.

...the concerns for many conservative voters -- concerns that may cause them not to vote for Mr. Bush on Nov. 2 -- fall generally into three categories: fiscal, physical (as in the physical security of our nation) and freedom (as in protecting our civil liberties).

Link via Matthew Gross.

Sinclair is a conservative broadcasting group that owns 62 television stations across the country, many in swing states. The stations reach 25 % of the American viewing public. The Los Angeles Times reports the company has ordered its stations to air an Anti-Kerry Film on the eve of the election. Regular programming will be pre-empted.

Sinclair has told its stations — many of them in political swing states such as Ohio and Florida — to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry — a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester — of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the plan.

...It's not the American way for powerful corporations to strong-arm local broadcasters to air lies promoting a political agenda," said David Wade, a spokesman for the Democratic nominee's campaign. "It's beyond yellow journalism; it's a smear bankrolled by Republican money, and I don't think Americans will stand for it."

Viewers who get Sinclair channels should lodge a protest of this attempt by Republican supporters to hijack the vote. These stations are on network tv, not cable, and their reach is huge. Republican efforts to justify the airing by pointing out plans of Michael Moore and Sundance to air parts of Fahrenheit 9/11 are inapt because Moore and Sundance are not in the same league as Sinclair, and because cable isn't subject to the same FCC rules.

In her book "Bushworld," New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd gives President Bush the name "Furious George" .

Dowd uses effortless irony in support of positive discrimination, suggests 'Furious George', as she calls Bush II, thinks social security is a dating service, and writes of the war in Iraq: 'This administration is the opposite of the movie The Sixth Sense. They don't see any dead people.'

Dowd is positively kind to Bush compared with Alexandra Wilson's portrayal of "Dangerous Dick" (Cheney) in the U.K.'s Mirror. It's about the ugliest description of a politician I've seen. The picture of the bloody child in the middle of the article is definitely over-the-top. But, she lists 20 "facts" about Cheney--does anyone know how many are true?

A new Reuters/Gallup poll taken just before the debate has Kerry ahead by one point:

Kerry pulled ahead of Bush 46-45 percent in the latest three-day tracking poll, which concluded before the start of Friday night's televised debate between the two contenders in St. Louis, Missouri.

The two had been in a statistical dead heat in the previous poll, with Bush leading by less than one percentage point.

I expect the post-debate polls to give him a further lead. If you see any new results from scientific polls start coming in, let us know in the comments.