Crucial Two Months

Two months ago today:

Still, Rep. Jack Kingston, a reliable Bush supporter from Georgia, said that vote "could have been the peak, possibly the last statement of House public solidarity with the White House. As the war develops in the next two crucial months, the political solidarity may change."

A question increasingly asked in the Capitol is: how big a price might the party pay if the war continues to claim U.S. casualties without quelling the anti-American insurgency?

"We have been very supportive" of the administration's Iraq policy, Kingston said in an interview with The Associated Press. But among GOP House members, he said, "there are discussions on the floor: 'Hey, 30 members lost their seats last year, and a lot of them lost because of the war.'"

It might not matter, said Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. "As a party, we are locked into being the party of the war in Iraq -- right, wrong or indifferent," he said. "The only salvation for us is that it works."