Montel Williams Ambushes Military Families
Another Reason Not to Trust the Media -Spouse Buzz Via Hot Air
The trouble started during the second taping, when we learned that Montel's agenda with military people wasn't what it had been portrayed to be when our group was invited to attend. And as military families have been burned so often by unscrupulous media members (I'm not attacking the ones who work professionally here!), we probably should have sensed it from the beginning. We were going to be ambushed.
As soon as the opening tape began to roll, hubby and I were uncomfortable. Montel was using this episode to discuss the debilitating illnesses some military members have suffered from anthrax inoculations. Using footage with the flag and men in uniform, Montel referred several times to military members being "guinea pigs", repeated several times about the mandatory vaccine which he presented as going to everyone with no one being able to refuse it.
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And while the issue of the anthrax vaccine is a very real one and one that needs to be addressed further, Montel Williams chose to use this subject to ambush a military group (which included women whose husbands were currently deployed to Iraq). The sudden ambushing of such an emotionally charged subject, combined with the portrayal of our military members as total victims (which included Montel's assertion that the military was being treated so terribly that no one would volunteer again and the draft would have to be reinstated) was an emotional manipulation and degradation of the very military members that were supposedly being lifted up. The blatant emotional manipulation and doomsday scenarios implied by the footage shown reduced more than one attending wife to tears.
Finally, we all got up and left during a break before the taping was over. And I should probably add that there was a quite acrimonious exchange with Montel that resulted in one person being escorted out by the show security (who were very polite and professional, for the record). I did say, "You told us this was going to be about deployment, Montel!" to which the reply was, "Please, just leave." If there was any discussion of how deployment issues affect family members after we left, it happened without us. All I can say is that the direction and tone of the show definitely made it look like the topic was not going to come up.
I guess what's left to ask is, what do you expect from someone whose featured guest is a phony psychic named Sylvia Browne.
