Doug Thompson - Morning News (NWA) 

Rank and file Republicans are the ones who count about Iraq. The incredible shrinking president doesn’t matter any more.

That thought, which should have occurred to me sooner, really hit home when the theme for this year’s Washington County Lincoln Day Dinner was announced: Supporting the Troops.

Tickets to the May 12 fundraiser are no charge to U.S. service personnel and to one guest for each of them. The featured speaker is Karl Rove. Those interested can call Gary or Lin Carnahan at 750-1040 or 283-1727 or e-mail linandgary@cox.net.

“We want to make sure every active duty soldier who has spent time outside our country in harm’s way receives a salute from us,” a recent announcement read. “We are selling tickets to cover the cost of the dinner but there will no charge to the soldier and their one guest. Our second goal is to say ‘thank you’ to the spouses who kept life going at home. We will be honoring them that night as well.”

That seems to be a theme for Republicans nationwide.

CBS and the New York Times released a nationwide poll last week. Pollsters interviewed 1,052 people and give a margin of plus or minus 3 percent.

Fifty-eight percent of those polled who identified themselves as Republicans approved of the way the president was “handling the situation in Iraq.”

This compares to 19 percent of independents that approve of the president’s “handling.” A near-invisible 5 percent of Democrats support the president on this.

Overall, support for the president on the war was 24 percent. Clearly this consists almost exclusively of GOP rank and file.

No GOP congressman anywhere is going to defy this base.