Unhealthy debate

Politics: Half-truths and whole falsehoods cloud discussion of Bush’s surgeon general nominee | Lynn Vincent

In June, as major media were turning surgeon general nominee James Holsinger into a piñata, Rev. Keith Boyette's telephone rang. The caller was a producer from Paula Zahn Now: The CNN news magazine wanted to do a show on Holsinger, the producer said, and had been told that Boyette, pastor of Wilderness Community Church in Spottsylvania, Va., knew Holsinger very well.

The Zahn producer's interest in Holsinger, Boyette told WORLD, had little to do with the doctor's distinguished record as a Kentucky cardiologist, cabinet secretary for the state's health services department, and former chief medical director of the Veterans Administration. Instead, she wanted to focus on rumors that had dominated public discussions of the man President Bush nominated in May to be the nation's top doc: that Holsinger is anti-gay.