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| Tampa Film Review Reminder for June by Paul Guzzo | ||
| Batwoman Returns as a Lesbian by Nolan B. Canova | ||
| MOVIE REVIEW "The Omen" by Mike Smith | ||
| MY MIDDLE TOE Gas Prices Affecting Movies by Mark Terry | ||
| CREATURE'S CORNER "The Da Vinci Code"....Manatees Off The Endangered List by John Lewis | ||
| MIKE'S RANT Matthew Has Left The Building....Billy and Vince Have Just Left....Don't Drink and Drive....My Favorite Films -- Part 23: "Grease" by Mike Smith | ||
Nolan's Pop Culture ReviewEstablished A.D. 2000, March 19. Now in our seventh calendar year!
Number 324 (Vol. 7, No. 23). This edition is for the week of June 5--11, 2006.
By Lisa Zubek
Many of Bush’s opponents are calling the bid a blatant attempt to pacify his conservative base in an election year and an effort to bolster his sagging poll numbers by championing the hot-button cause that has little chance of passing anyway.
The president has made no secret of his views on the subject of same-sex marriage, indeed using his weekly radio address on Saturday to publicly seek support for the amendment.
The peculiar thing about Bush’s strong stance against gay rights is that this week a story is coming to light that may expose some closet-dwelling skeletons that this administration has apparently been trying to keep locked securely away. Skeletons that if exposed, could prove at the very least a huge embarrassment to the president, and could expose shocking hypocrisy of the pot/kettle type.
This week the internet is abuzz with “rumors” of a purported long-standing homosexual affair between George W. Bush and his college room-mate, now the U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Victor Ashe.
McConnell, a one time dominatrix is currently running as a Democratic candidate for Governor of Nevada.
The fiercely partisan political climate being what it is today, one might be tempted to dismiss the story as a smear campaign… that is until one looks into the “rumor” and finds that there have been others who have corroborated the account of Bush and Ashe’s “special relationship”.
In 2004, controversial tell-all biographer Kitty Kelley wrote a scathing account of life in the Bush family in which she also alleges that Bush and Ashe have been involved in a homosexual relationship since puberty.
She further alleges George W. Bush cohabitated with Ashe, then Knoxville Tennessee Mayor, at his Texas ranch and elsewhere.
Kelley, however, has been called on the carpet before for not fully checking her sources when penning her famous unauthorized celebrity biographies.
Digging further (and one needn’t dig very hard… Googling the two men’s names, gives you hundreds of references to the rumor, in one form or another), one finds that the Polish underground press has even gotten wind of the allegations and has been raising questions about the rampant cronyism that this administration has displayed, and whether Ashe is in fact qualified for the position he holds as Ambassador.
Speculation surrounding Ashe’s sexual orientation has long been at issue. At a national mayor’s conference in San Francisco, Ashe was allegedly introduced on live TV by Peter Jennings as “The gay Mayor from Knoxville”
Ashe was allegedly arrested twice in the past for attempting to solicit a male prostitute, though no information exists (or at least was available to me) on the arrests.
Though none of these allegations have yet been substantiated, if McConnell has some hard proof of what she alleges, say a check or receipts, there is little doubt that the president would have egg on his face indeed, where a Constitutional Amendment regarding gay marriage is concerned.
This story has yet to be picked up by any of the mainstream media and I acknowledge that that might appear to some as an indication of politically-motivated rumors and innuendo designed to smear a president in a ratings free-fall, however, I do urge you to do some research and decide for yourselves.
True or not, I rather doubt that Bush will be holding a press conference next week to “come out” to the nation.
"Sex, Lies and Constitutional Amendments" is ©2006 by Lisa Zubek
All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2006 by Nolan B. Canova.
Sex, Lies and Constitutional Amendments
This week the Senate again voted down the president’s call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Leola McConnell claims that in 1984 she was paid 15,000 to arrange 3 sexual liaisons involving bisexual men for then private citizen George W. Bush, and Victor Ashe, then Tennessee State Senator.