And you thought Nancy was tough.

The esteemed House Minority Leader may have nailed Bush's moldy pelt to the White House wall with a railroad spike this week, but in some ways her comments pale beside the more widespread assault on the administration that comes via former NSC staffer Roger Morris, who concluded his own government career by resigning from the Nixon administration over the invasion of Cambodia.

Calling on today's foreign service professionals to follow his lead, Morris offers an open letterin Salon. Here are some of the characterizations he makes of the "cabal of political appointees and ideological zealots, led by the exceptionally powerful and furtively doctrinaire Vice President Cheney." He describes

"...a deeply politicized, parochial Pentagon."

a "...willfully uninformed and heedless president..." who has inspired "...tales of his ignorance and sectarian fervor."

while telling the FSOs that "You serve the worst foreign policy regime by far in the history of the republic."

How bad is it? This bad.

"...we are living a foreign policy nightmare, locked in a cycle of violence and seething, spreading hatred continued at incalculable cost, escaped only with hazardous humiliation abroad and bitter divisions at home. Debacle is complete.

He doesn't spare the foreign service's boss, declaring that Colin Powell

"...who remains the political general he always was, never honoring your loss by giving up his office when he might have stemmed the descent."

Then Morris makes his plea

."Your resignations alone would speak to America the truth that beyond any politics, this Bush regime is intolerable -- and to an increasingly cynical world the truth that there are still Americans who uphold with their lives and honor the highest principles of our foreign policy."

He knows, of course, that the price for such action is high. It's a price he once paid himself. Still, he offers this reassurance.

"My friends and I used to remark that the Nixon administration was so unprincipled it took nothing special to resign. It is a mark of the current tragedy that by comparison with the Bush regime, Nixon and Kissinger seem to many model statesmen."

There's more, just as strong, just as true. Buy the sub or watch the ad, but don't skip this one.