Powerful Republican Senator Stands Up to Bush

Republican Senator John Warner is showing courage by standing up to the White House's "surge" plan:

More than 30 years after Vietnam, Warner is once again watching as generals propose additional troops. But this time, he's not staying silent. In a rebuke to President Bush, Warner is leading an effort to have the U.S. Senate declare a lack of confidence in the administration's plans to send 21,500 additional soldiers into the Iraqi war zone.

The White House is going to have a hard time trying to discredit a Senator who has respect within the military establishment:

White House officials were taken aback by the move, which is striking because of Warner's stature, both in the Republican Party and as one of the country's most ardent supporters of the military. But Warner, who once was married to Elizabeth Taylor, has an almost mythic popularity, which has made it impossible for Bush allies to demonize him on the issue.

It is precisely Warner's experience with the Vietnam War that has prompted him to oppose the repetition of that folly:

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, the former Navy secretary said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office. "The Army generals would come in, 'Just send in another five or ten thousand.' You know, month after month. Another ten or fifteen thousand. They thought they could win it. We kept surging in those years. It didn't work."