Adding a powerful establishment voice to the growing campaign against George Bush’s appointment of John Bolton to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations, a group of 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject Bolton’s nomination.

Echoing a host of liberal and centrist critics of the nomination, in a letter to Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the diplomats–both Democrats and Republicans–call Bolton, “The wrong man for the position.” The letter’s criticisms dwell largely on what the ex-diplomats call Bolton’s “exceptional record” of opposing American efforts to improve national security through arms control. (For more details on why Bolton is a terrible choice, read recent pieces by The Nation‘s UN correspondent Ian Willams and the magazine’s Washington editor David Corn.)

Bolton is another in a line of extreme in-your-face nominees put forth recently by the White House. It’s important to show that they face opposition. Lugar has scheduled hearings on April 7 for the Senate to debate Bolton’s nomination. Click here to implore your Senators to oppose the nominee.