It’s Time to Speak Up, Sen. Warner

It’s hard to believe that a former husband of Elizabeth Taylor holds a big key to bringing American troops home from Iraq.

That would be John Warner.

Warner, a World War II veteran who was married to the actress from 1976-82, has been anything but a quick study first as Navy secretary in the Nixon and Ford administrations and for the last 28 years a Republican senator from Virginia. I say that because he has grown as a legislator and has continually surprised as a man not necessarily beholden to party or president.

This brings us to the here and now and the Gordian knot that the Bush administration has defty woven in the form of its Iraq war policy — ever changing strategies, rationales, battlefield commanders and deadlines as Americans and Iraqis continue to die in large numbers with no satisfactory result.

Warner has spoken out forcefully about the president’s Forever War, famously remarking that “Iraq is drifting sideways.” He is the only Republican leader with the gravitas to lay it on the line and say, “Mr. President, enough is enough. It is time to begin bringing the troops home.”

It is time for him to do so.