CAMERON SLATER IS A GOOD GUY !

It was a Cameron Slater love-fest on TVNZ's Seven Sharp last night.

JUST RECENTLY  Cameron Slater, the man behind the Whaleoil blog, launched a savage and nasty attack on Tania Billingsley. She is , of course, the young woman who has alleged that she was the victim of a sexual assault by a Malaysian diplomat. Thanks largely to the incompetence  and ineptitude of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully, he managed to flee back to Malaysia.

Billingsley showed remarkable courage and determination  not only  by  going to the media but also by  aiming some well-honed criticisms at the Government for its spectacular  failure to act. 

This though earned her the ire of Cameron Slater. In what will no doubt rank has one of the most vile blog posts this year, Slater accused  Billingsley of being a political pawn in a  Green Party plot to embarrass the Government. Slater basically said  that she had 'cried rape'.

Slater's allegation  though was nothing more than a mixture of lies, smear, innuendo and disinformation. In other words, his usual stock in trade.

But this was not the first time that Slater's 'journalism' has indulged  in lies and sleaze -  which has included breaking  several name suppression orders  and which he has been convicted.

Slater  has in the past also  sold his  journalistic  services. He has acknowledged that he has demanded payment from companies and individuals when he wrote posts that were unfavourable to their opponents and favourable to them.

Despite all this Slater was astoundingly  named 'Blogger of the Year' at the recent Canon Media Awards. The judge was Deborah Hill-Cone and not known for her liberal sympathies.

Slater's award was not met with universal appreciation  and he was the subject of heckling at the award ceremony itself.

Another journalist though who appreciates the 'finer things' about Cameron Slater is Seven Sharp's  Heather du Plessis-Allan.

Last night she 'treated' us to a profile of Slater that could of been  scripted by a public relations  firm.

Slater's behaviour and  his role as an attack dog for the National Party were casually swept under the carpet with a clearly Slater-besotted  du Plessis Allan anxious to tell us that her man  had turned from his  evil ways,  was really 'a good guy' and hey, he had  a sense of humour  as well. I'm sure the family of a young man killed  in a car crash appreciated  Slater's 'humour'. He  described  the unfortunate  young man as 'feral'.

Du Plessis-Allan uncritically  swallowed Slater's  claim that he is now a 'Christian', This apparently absolves  him of everything. He is a changed man! Such puerile  nonsense. If anything Slater's supposed 'conversion' only  will only serve to confirm his intolerance, bigotry and ignorance. This is often the case with converts  to organised religion.

As no less than the Dalai Lama has said: “Religious belief is not a precondition either of ethical conduct or of happiness.”

But someone else who is impressed  by Cameron Slater is another National party cheerleader, Mike Hosking.  At the end of last night's  Seven Sharp he informed  us that Slater often quoted from his NewstalkZB opinion pieces. Hosking thinks that  the fact that he and Slater agree on so many things is something to be proud of  - like, for instance,  their hatred of the Labour Party and  why selling comment for cash is a good thing.