August 26, 2004

The following is an excerpt from CNN.com's August 26, 2004 online coverage of the Presidential Election.

Bush Dogged By Banana Boat Veterans Allegations

    Bush campaign officials are scrambling to respond to a wave of attack ads sponsored by a new 527 group, The Banana Boat Veterans for Queer Truth.  The ads currently airing in the election battleground states of Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin suggest that George W. Bush, a married man and father of two, has a widely suppressed Gay past.  In the ads, members of the group of former employees of Banana Boat Cruises, a ferry service at the notorious South Hombre Island Gay resort in Texas, claim that during the Seventies Bush was a frequent visitor to the Gay beach club  which was known as "The Fire Island of the South."  The Banana Boats, small richly appointed cruisers, were often chartered for romantic moonlight cruises by groups of up to eight men at a time.  The controversial ads feature five former Banana Boat captains and seamen in video footage describing the future president as a frequent passenger and reveler on the so-called "Gay Love Boats."  Says one Banana Boat veteran, Rick "Spooner" Simpson, "Bush wants to pass that Gay marriage ban constitutional amendment now.  If you could have seen him in 1978 in one of those little thong bathing suits chugging down pina coladas, you'd have a hard time believing a word he says."

    Bush campaign spokesman Mitch Weaselton in a hastily organized press conference was quick to refute the charges.  "This attack group's charges are patently ridiculous.  Everyone knows the President is a devout heterosexual," Weaselton explained defensively.  He went on to show authenticated video footage of the young, future president in the nineteen seventies dating glamorous starlets such as Bette Midler, Donna Summers, and Liza Minelli.  Weaselton went on to denounce the Banana Boat Veterans for Queer Truth as a libelous, militant, Gay front group for Senator John Kerry.

Kerry Responds

    Kerry campaign chairwoman Nelda Falsterman was quick to respond claiming that the Banana Boat Veterans had no ties to the Kerry campaign.  While campaigning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Senator Kerry addressed the issue directly.  "These scandalous accusations about President Bush are troubling for many reasons.  First and foremost, they draw attention away from real issues of importance such as the badly staggering economy, the misguided war in Iraq, and the administration's brand new tactic of unleashing John Ashcroft and the FBI on music downloaders instead of terrorists.  Secondly, this whole controversy merely forces us to again relive the Seventies, a barbarous, indecorous, ugly time for all of us.  I say to my esteemed fellow candidate George W. Bush, let us put the past behind us.  A man's sexual orientation in the past has no bearing on how poorly he can run the government today.  If President Bush wishes to 'come out' of if he prefers to merely stay in the closet, his sexual preference should have no bearing on this campaign."

Supportive Documentation Hard to Find

    The crisis sparked by the Banana Boat Veterans for Queer Truth has been complicated by the lack of any corroborating evidence to support their claims.  Founded in 1974 as an exclusive resort for Gay men, South Hombre Island reached its heyday in the late Seventies before the rise of AIDS and changing social attitudes took their toll.  The resort was wiped out in 1984 by Hurricane Peter, and all resort records were destroyed when Peter ravaged the Texas Gulf Coast.  In 1990, the resort was bought by Jerry Falwell and reopened as Son of God's Island and has since become a preferred honeymoon destination for fundamentalist Christian newlyweds.  With no remaining public record, the Banana Boat controversy has been reduced to a matter of he said/he said, and the Bush camp is clearly rattled.  Bush has called upon some of his peers and cohorts to support him and denounce the troubling accusations.  Testimonials from Burt Reynolds, Nolan Ryan, and the late Dale Earnhardt have been circulated to the press corps to bolster the President's claims of heterosexuality.  In a moving video  interview, country legend Mickey Gilley recalled the many times he and the young George Bush engaged in robust heterosexual dalliances with women of all ages, races, and creeds at his famous Texas nightclub Gilley's back in the Seventies.  "George W. Bush is a red-blooded, all-American man.  If you could have just seen some of the tail he was bird-dogging back in the day.  Honest, it was non-stop action for Beerman with the ladies," Gilley recalled.  "I can tell you from personal experience there is not a Gay bone in his body, and there never has been."  Though Bush loyalists are comforted by these testimonials, polls indicate that the public still has some concerns about this issue.

Support From an Unlikely Place

    The Bush campaign was surprised on Thursday when a group of top Hollywood stars came forward to endorse President Bush in his campaign to set his record straight.  At a press conference held in Rancho Mirage, California, an all-star lineup of Tinsel town's hottest and straightest leading men came out for Bush.  Lead by John Travolta, Richard Gere, and Tom Cruise, the superstars had strong words of support for the President.  "President Bush has our respect and admiration even if he is not Gay," said the diminutive Mr. Cruise.  "The fact that he is Gay has no effect whatsoever on our support, and we are proud to announce the launch of a new group to advocate fair play and an end to this campaign of rumors and allegations.  Our group, Glad to Assist You, Mr. President or GAY PRESIDENT, will speak out for fairness and honesty in the coming election."

"This Isn't Helping At All"

    As Gay artists from Harvey Fierstein to Ellen Degeneres line up to endorse President Bush, one Bush campaign insider was clearly upset and demoralized.  "I'm getting calls from George Michael, Melissa Etheridge, and even that bald guy form REM.  The Rock Hudson Foundation for Gay Political Expression sent us an endorsement and a fruit basket," the insider complained.  "This isn't helping us at all.  We're dying in the polls in the Midwest and the Rust Belt.  If I get one more endorsement from a Gay men's chorus, I'm going to scream."  The Bush campaign has now filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission claiming that the Banana Boat Veterans for Queer Truth are a Democrat funded front group.  The Commission is due to meet and rule on this complaint tomorrow.

-The following is an excerpt from CNN.com's August 27, 2004 online coverage of the Presidential Election.

Banana Boat Veterans a Hoax;  CNN Apologizes

    In a startling turn of events, a group of highly placed Democrats confessed that the whole Banana Boat Veterans campaign was simply an elaborate practical joke.  John Kerry's half step brother-in-law Rufus Reynaldo-Heinz-Kerry confirmed that he and some of his buddies got drunk one night last week, thought up the ad, taped it, and on a dare passed the hat, raised $100,000, and had it broadcast in three states.  He also reported that John Edward's shiftless half-brother Duffie Edwards-Waggoner played the part of reputed Banana Boat captain Rick "Spooner" Simpson in the ads disguised with a cheap wig and a fake moustache.  Surrounded by reporters as he stepped out of his trailer home in Spittle, North Carolina, Edwards-Waggoner confessed, "Hell, it was just a joke, fellars.  You don't really believe every crackpot thing you see on TV, do you?"

    We here at CNN take our role as journalists seriously and acknowledge the sanctity of the press and the responsibility that comes with reporting the news.  However, lately we have now assumed the same standard of plausibility as the public in general.  We saw the ads on TV, and we thought, Hey it's on TV!  It's probably true.  People can't just make up lies and put them on TV, can they?  Anyway, we're sure sorry we covered these baseless accusations and gave them credibility and importance through our credulous, amateurish journalism.  We really are sorry that in the process we contributed to the smearing of the record of a presidential candidate and gave weight to slander rather than actively debunking it.  We're sorry we reported the story instead of the truth.  We'll really try to better next time, honest!