Imagine you have a desk at GOP headquarters... OK, let's shoot the works: It's a corner office with a bank of windows overlooking a chlorophyllic pastoral scene - butterflies, spring flowers a-bloom, the whole nine yards. ...Looks like Bambi threw up out there.

And secretary? ...Ooo, Lawdy! Symphony in C-Cup. Or, Bristling ThunderBolt in Cutter & Buck - depending on your inclination.

OK?

You're looking at the charts. You have pages and pages of poll numbers all over your credenza. Things... well... things just don't look good. It's still May, but you're feeling an autumnal chill running up and down your highly flexuous spine. The figures aren't crunching, the stories aren't matching. And worst of all, the phone's gone cold. Nobody's calling.

Nobody's listening to your candidate! And he's been all alone on the campaign trail for months now! Nobody cares!

Dammit: The Straight-Talk Express is looking more and more like The Little Engine That McCain't.

Everytime he opens his mouth about the economy, Big John channels Marie Antoinette: If you got it, you keep it - if you lack it, go bleep it! The war is sticking to him like bad putty on an old Chevelle, and if lobbyists were hookers (no stretch, there), he'd be Superfly.

Doesn't look good. The White House is getting farther and farther away, even with a dutiful media that believes the old fart craps diamonds and turns water into imported wine.

Then... out of nowhere... an IDEA!

What does the President do when he runs out of half-baked slop to sling at the Great Unwashed? Why... he mentions 9/11, of course. Flipping through the desk calendar, you see the Gitmo trials are set to begin. Good! That'll turn the bus around; once Americans are reminded of the smoking buildings and the baleful aftermath, they'll forget all about those martial doubts.

Or... not.

Reuters today notes a little fly in the ointment concerning those precipitously scheduled trials: Federal prosecutors are worried their "evidence" will toss the whole courtroom into a deep, dark kangaroo pouch.

"U.S. prosecutors preparing to try accused September 11 plotters expect criticism if they seek to use defendants' statements as evidence, because of the abuse of suspects during interrogation," Reuters reports.

Uh-huh. They don't want any transcripts of shrill, tormented screaming, or fuzzy confessions to sinking the Lusitania and blowing up the Johnstown dam. Most Americans realize if you pry out enough fingernails, people have a tendency to do anything to stop the pain - guzzle spot remover, cannibalize the shriveled stiff of long-dead Aunt Suzie, or even cop to crimes with which they had little or nothing to do.

According to the report, "The authorities are mulling whether and how to use the defendants' own words against them, despite accusations that harsh CIA and military interrogations have rendered any information obtained from them unreliable."

It remains to be seen whether anything of note will come from the trials, which include the five allegedly connected to the Trade Center/Pentagon plot. The cases begin next week with the arraignment of the five at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Among the defendants is the surly and exceedingly hairy Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused mastermind of the devastating attacks; he just looks guilty.

The positioning of the trial in the months leading up to the election may be yet another backfire for the Bush Administration's second-string; the not-so-bright lights who drifted in after the second inauguration have stumbled into one political gopher hole after another. They seem unable to achieve Task No. One: fabricating a casus belli for an Iran assault. And from Alberto to Alphonso, they appear to have blurred the line between two-bit lying and outright malfeasance.

If anything, this miscalculation exemplifies how remote and out of touch the Adminstration has become. Each time a "milestone" is reached in Iraq, we're warned not to become "complacent" about the war, ignoring the fact that only a dwindling minority of Americans are even positive about the war anymore. And among these "milestones" - the targeted assassination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the legal lynching of Saddam Hussein - the only reaction drawn from our citizenry is revulsion.

For years, Bush's disapproval rating has been hovering between 60 and 70 percent. On the standard that no American president has been so unpopular for so long, he is our most-despised leader - ever.

But Bush can still depend on that hard 30 percent support - the ones waiting for Howdy Doody to return to network TV, are frightened of those wild tales about a heliocentric solar system and who believe Iceland is the entrance to the Hollow Earth. They'll ALWAYS be there for him.

And maybe they'll be there for John McCain, too.

He can keep them.

Ever watch the footage of American troops on patrol in Iraq and wonder how they can bear up in the Mesopotamian heat wearing so much accessory - full tunics, ammo belts, packs, boots. And sometimes even poorly made, government-issue flak vests? ...Those, too.

Maybe it's a matter of the military wanting its warriors to look soldierly, in an almost formal sort of way. After all... the boys went shirtless in Vietnam and look what happened. Or maybe it's a gear-intensive way of keeping the responsibilities of service uppermost in an overheated PFC's mind.

Or maybe it's simply this: There's a lot of junk supplied by military subcontractors - and the individual troops must shoulder it all to give those flashlights and can-openers and cable-cutters an ongoing function, busting off for the doo-dads a vital slice of the far-off victory just around the corner, somewhere down Someday Road.

...Or, at least, a reason to re-order in time for next year's appropriation.

We're not even going to mention the vehicles, artillery shells and bloated bureaucrat salaries bulking out the rest of Pentagon's gargantuan operating budget. And food, and desks for the Green Zone commanders, and Kandy Korn.... and anti-missile radar. The whole list of provisions - everything it takes to keep a war bleeding.

That the expense of our platinum war machine has become a monster in its own right is outlined by Frida Berrigan and TomDispatch at:

http://www.alternet.org/story/86573/