Anyone who has spent time at this website knows that I have it in for Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater because he was really the one who started the famous Rathergate phony memo scandal . So it with great shock to everyone that I announce that once upon a time in 2004, in an interview with PBS Frontline, Slater actually got it right. And I'm proud of him for doing so.

For those who don't know, Slater was the one who brought forth Bill Burkett — the man who provided the phony documents to Dan Rather's editor, Mary Mapes — as a credible witness despite overwhelming evidence that Burkett was a serial liar and basic. Since Slater works with Mary Mapes' husband, Mark Wrolstrad, and since I had raised such a stink about Burkett to so many editors and reporters at the Morning News before Rather's story broke, I have no idea how Slater kept his job. He and I made peace one night during the time that Rather's story was “falling faster than Bill Clinton's pants at a sorority party,” and I sincerely believe that he was sorry for what he had done.

A CONFLICTED SLATER?
“What I cannot understand though is how Slater can give such an insightful interview to PBS Frontline yet still let his political agenda guide his reporting.”

Slater, even after Dan Rather's fall, continued to write nonsense stories like this smear piece on Karl Rove. Not only that, but as I wrote in the above-mentioned post:

Wayne Slater is the co-author of “Bush’s Brain,” a Michael Moore-type expose on how Rove is the evil genius behind the simpleton George W. Bush’s rise to power. It was also made into a Fahrenheit 9/11-style movie. If you decide to read the book or see the movie, you’ll find tons and tons of evidence scrupulously detailed by the authors. Unfortunately, virtually all of it is circumstantial. It’s a book with an agenda, very similar to some of the more bizarre Clinton-is-Antichrist publications that came out during the 1990s.

The book and the movie make Michael Moore look like a serious-minded researcher who seeks the truth regardless of whether the truth reinforces his personal belief.

What a surprise it was for me while ago to find a PBS Frontline interview with Wayne Slater published back in April of 2004 where Slater actually got it right concerning Bush. Here are a couple of snippets but I encourage you to read the entire article — it's lengthy and contains a lot of good stuff that I've omitted in my quotes below:

Bush believes very much in the core ideas of Christianity — the belief that you must believe in Jesus in order to go to heaven, that there is no other way to salvation. …That's a fundamental Christian belief, and he embraces it. He believes in the absolute nature of God. Fundamentally, he believes in the existence of evil, not as an abstract idea, a philosophy, but as something that's real and tangible. It's something we've seen really most recently when he talks about the terrorists. He talks of them openly about the existence of evil on Earth. That's something that means something to him. That's a designed comment. That's something that comes out of his heart, because he absolutely believes it.

...

Throughout his political life, George Bush has tried to balance this idea of being evangelical Christian with sort of the necessities of politics — not only how you govern, but also how you get elected.

If you look sanctimonious, if you look hypocritical, if you look like one of these TV preachers who's out there talking all the time about religion, then he knows that works to the detriment on the political side. There's nothing wrong with that. Frankly, it is a pragmatic understanding of politics. Americans want their president or their governor to be religious. They want them to be ethical. They want them to stand for high moral standards. But they don't necessarily want them to be some firebrand who creates a theocracy.

“Bush would talk to me about how his life was transformed by God, from a guy who was drinking and running around, to a person who looked at life in a whole new way.”

Bush, both as a candidate, I think, and certainly as a governor and a president, has tried to balance that, understanding that our government is a secular government. The role of religion, whether it's faith-based organizations who get involved with the government on welfare or prison ministries or helping folks in need — this partnership can be a partnership without violating the church/state separation.

But the role of religion in transforming the lives of people — Bush would talk to me about how his life was transformed by God, from a guy who was drinking and running around, to a person who looked at life in a whole new way.

So when he sees these religious programs, charitable faith programs, and applies those as a partnership with government, he's not trying to create a theocracy. He's not trying to smear the line between, blur the line between church and state. What he's doing in his heart is saying, “What's the best way to help people who are poor and people who are in need?” In his life, his experience tells him the best way is not simply to hand them money, but the best way is to transform their heart. He believes it, and he believes these programs can do it. …

...

If you asked George Bush, “Are your public policies based on your religious beliefs? Does God dictate that a particular public policy be a public policy in a secular nation?” he'll be careful. He'll say, “This is not what God dictates. But my religious faith informs my attitudes about public policy.”

It's a clear, but somewhat subtle distinction. On the one hand, he's the president of a secular and pluralistic nation. So he has to make decisions and advocate policies, whether it's about gay marriage or whether it's about taxes, or whether it's about highway funding, that reflect the best interest that he has and who he is in his heart.

But as an evangelical Christian, he has a role as part of the divine drama that's underway, that he reflects those ultimate values, those intrinsic values of evangelical Christianity. So if you talk to George Bush and you say, “Do you make decisions based on what God tells you?” he'll say no. But if you ask him, “Do you make decisions based on a fundamental faith that reflects your attitude about Christianity and the attitudes and points of view of Christianity?” he'll say, “Yes. I reflect the fundamental values and ethics of a Christian faith.”

..

One of the things that was important to George Bush was Bible study. Going to church is fine. Going to church on Sunday night with the family for an event is good. But Bible study is the kind of glue that really puts things together. Bible study is a small group of people who systematically go through passages of the Bible, study those, deal with those, and apply those in their everyday lives.

Bush became actively a part of Bible study. He was brought in by Don Evans, his good friend here in Midland, Texas. For him, it was important, because it really introduced him to a systematic study of the Bible and understanding, not simply of a few words and phrases here and there, but the fundamental concepts of religion. …

It helps you make sense of the world and your place in the world. It became for him really important, because before this, he had a problem with alcohol. He had been a guy who was drinking too much. He was running around, and was smoking and did not have the kind of stable life that even his wife said he needed. After he found God in his life, and after he began going to church, it was Bible study that really fundamentally nurtured this belief system and helped him grow in an understanding of what evangelical Christianity was in his life. So it was enormously important.

That's one reason why you see Bible study at The White House, where so many people, like the president, believe that Bible study is fundamentally a part of their continuing what they'll call their walk with God. Not simply that you're born again, but that you continue, refresh and grow in this attitude, in this aspect, in this understanding that Christian faith informs, not only who you are, but how you operate in the world. …

To Slater's immense credit, he does not ridicule Bush's faith. The mainstream media in general had no problem seeing Clinton going to church with a Bible prominently in hand because they knew that it was a phony act calculated to gain sympathy. Clinton talked about his faith, but the press gave him a pass because they knew that it was just a political ploy and that his actions never reflected his talk. As Slater indicates, the press knows that Bush's faith is not a political ploy, but rather is the core being of who he really is. They can't stand that.

This is my dilemma with Wayne Slater. I know that he's an intelligent man and a good writer. I don't put him in the same class as the barking moonbats like Markos at Dialogs, who really do need some serious mental and emotional treatment. What I cannot understand though is how Slater can give such an insightful interview to PBS Frontline yet still let his political agenda guide his reporting. Slater is smart enough to know that Bill Burkett was a liar who didn't quite have all his marbles, yet he still chose to promote him nationally. Slater is also smart enough to know better than to write such a dreadful book as Bush's Brain, which is just one inaccuracy after another.

So I guess my question is really “who is Wayne Slater?” Is there a good Wayne Slater and an evil Wayne Slater? I don't think that he is a buffoon like John Hanchette. I really do have a lot of sympathy for Slater (he has to regret the huge role he played in bringing down Dan Rather) yet I cannot understand why he so willingly sells out his journalistic credibility to the wacko left wing of the Democrat Party. Does he wrestle with this at at nights? Does he ever feel conflicted? Only he knows. Perhaps I'll invite him to lunch someday and we'll talk about these issues (off-the-record, of course). I don't care about the phony nonsense of Bush's Brain, but I would like to understand Wayne Slater's brain.

(Open Trackbacks to Wizbang's Carnival of the Trackbacks LXXII)

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