Anyway, I switched on the TV in the mistaken hope that it would distract me from the feeling that I was about to die painfully of rude good health.

President Bush was attending a question-andanswer session at Kansas University when one of the students put to him the following enquiry. "You're a rancher. A lot of us here in Kansas are ranchers. I just wanted to get your opinion on Brokeback Mountain and if you had seen it yet. . . You would love it. You should check it out."

To this, ole George did his weasel-in-the-headlights gape before plunging into the depths of a response: "I hadn't seen it. . . I would be glad to talk about ranching. . .

but I haven't seen the movie. . . I've heard about it. . .

I hope you go. . . you know. . .

heh-heh. . . I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm is what I was going to say. . . I hadn't seen it."

Ranching? Huh?

Brokeback Mountain about "ranching"? Was this some new sexual euphemism that had not been brought to my attention? ("Any chance of a good ranching? Ah, go on. I won't tell anyone.") No, it was only the latest of those eerie eruptions we might call the George Bush mindfart. You sort of felt for the poor ditz. Up there all alone. Having to answer.

Like, a question. With Everyone. Listening. Such moments are best watched through the grid of the fingers. You can almost hear the brain-cogs sheer.

What was disturbing was how the American media responded to this relative non-event. It was as though the student who had lobbed this curve-ball was Torquemada and Charlie Bird rolled into one, or had performed a streak through the lecture theatre, so daring was his feat. He was interviewed on the evening news, asked why he had asked this question. Had he planned it in advance? (As opposed to in retrospect, presumably. ) Had he given it a lot of thought? What answer had he expected?

Like, George Dubya Bush was really going to respond, "Oh yes, I've seen it, it's wonderfully moving, and the sexual chemistry between the two cowboys was SMOKIN'!" George, as we know, is much admired by leading conservatives, the kind of down-home God fearin' Christian folk who regard a pyramid of naked Iraqis as par for the course but want to ban Doonesbury in case it corrupts your children.

Now, it's often very interesting when politicians talk about art. Tony Blair likes Van Gogh. Bill Clinton digs the Stones. Bertie Ahern finds it pleasurable to listen to 'How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?' and other vivid works of gangsta rap.

Leaving aside the likelihood that George has ever seen a film that did not contain the words 'Porky's' or 'Revenge' in its title, and could not be enjoyed while pelting a buddy with nuts, there was another aspect of this story that began to concern me, as I trudged my lonely treadmill, trying not to trip over my belly. There was, I am almost sure, more attention given to this student's cheeky inquiry than there was about the war in Iraq.

Journalists get blamed for everything, unjustly. But here in America you would have to conclude that some media fall short in their most basic task. To date, not one funeral of an American soldier has been shown on US television.

There has been far, far more coverage of the horrible incident last week . . .

in which an ABC news anchor and his cameraman were victims of a bomb . . .

than there has been of any of the tens of thousands of civilian deaths in this utterly disastrous adventure. America is talking fictional cowboys.

The real one, meanwhile, is smiling. And it's not very far to Guantanamo Bay, that little corner of the empire that is 19th century Texas, where you could vanish at the whim of whoever led the posse, and few would even know you had gone.