Texas Senators want to win in Iraq

Houston Chronicle:

Though a growing number of Senate Republicans are edging away from the Bush administration's Iraq strategy, President Bush still can count fellow Texans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn in his corner.

The Texas Republicans have made clear they are firmly opposed to Democrats' efforts — joined in recent days by several GOP senators — to quickly reshape the military mission.

The Senate faces a pivotal decision next week whether to order the troops' withdrawal by next spring.

The House, ignoring a Bush veto threat, voted 223-201 Thursday night to begin withdrawing combat troops within 120 days and to complete their return home by April. The Texas congressional delegation's 19 Republicans and 13 Democrats voted along party lines, except for Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, who did not vote.

Cornyn said Democrats are "advocating a policy of retreat."

"They are seeking to abandon the central front in the war on terror and allow Iraq to become a safe haven for al-Qaida," he said.

Leaving Iraq rapidly would do lasting damage to the United States, Hutchison said.

"What country in the world would ever fear America as an enemy or embrace America as an ally if we have the appearance that we just want to get out, no matter what the consequences or what the circumstances are on the ground, because it's just gotten too tough?" she said at a news conference Thursday with other Bush supporters.

The Texans' embrace of Bush on the war is interesting in Cornyn's case because, as he prepares for a 2008 re-election campaign, he apparently isn't reacting to rising public war weariness in the same way as some other Republicans who will face voters next year.

After all, seven GOP senators — six of them up for re-election in 2008 — broke ranks Wednesday to support a Democratic measure that essentially would have reduced troop strength in Iraq by granting soldiers more time off between combat tours.

"Clearly the Republicans who have to face the voters soon are very jumpy," said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University.

Cornyn was critical Thursday of senators who have concluded the recently completed troop surge isn't working.

"I'd rather take the views of a general like David Petraeus than I would the armchair generals back here in Washington, D.C., that want to try to dictate the tactics of a war thousands of miles away," he said in a telephone call with Texas reporters.

...

Still, with Cornyn's favorable ratings well below 50 percent in SurveyUSA tracking polls undertaken for Texas television stations, University of Texas political expert Bruce Buchanan expressed some surprise the senator isn't looking for a way to mollify a public increasingly sour over the war.

"That tells me that he's willing to take a risk for some reason here, and it could be principle; it could be other kinds of pressure," Buchanan said.

Of course it is principle. You can hear and see the passion in his words. I don't think Texas is going to vote for anti war pukes who want to retreat. We are not losing this war in Iraq. If we do lose it , it will be lost in Washington where Democrats will cynically push for defeat and blame the consequences of their efforts on Republicans. There is absolutely no reason to join with them in that effort. There is every reason to oppose them them in their desperation for defeat and put the loser label on them that they deserve.