"CR" in PS1, doesn't reset "col" to 0

[Linda Walsh]

I recently changed my PS1 prompt to set the title and icon text in the 
tty frame window to "user@host";  I wanted to put it in my PS1 as it 
catches "everything" -- from sudo/su to root (changes to root@host), to 
when I type "control-d" to exit a su script or log off a remote system 
-- the title maintains the correct user@host combination for non-local 
logins.

Problem has to do with ...I'm guessing (?) readline's idea of the Column.

Of course it doesn't know how "non-printing" (or text that doesn't 
generate a physical position as in the set-icon+title function).  So I 
thought that it should be able to understand that a "CR" would 
return/reset the column to zero.  That way it could correctly compute 
what column it was in.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work -- on "longer" lines -- those that 
are around 15-16 chars from end of line (set icon text is ~15-16 chars:
"\033]1;user@host\007").  I added the "CR" after the "\007" (hoping to
reset bash/readline's idea of the prompt-column to 0 at that point).

Is there a different way to do what I'm trying?  A different
"column reset" sequence known to bsh or rl?  Or a "PrePs1" type ENV var
that could be printed before the prompt with either it being the
user's responsibility to leave the cursor at col-0, or bsh/rl could
try to enforce by issuing a CR after the "pre-prompt" string, but
I don't know of any such mechanisms...

Doable/possible?

Thanks,
Linda