The recipe for being a good guest on a morning talk show seems fairly straightforward: be smart but not brainy; be glib but not pretentious; and always, always, always, remember to take a cue from the host and give them what it is you’re there to provide: easily digestible sound bites that somehow explain how something is an immediate threat to the lives of the viewer and/or the viewers' children.
In this regard, Lance Allred is a total failure. And we couldn’t be happier for him. ...
This morning, the Cavs benchwarmer – the NBA’s first legally deaf player and a budding author, who Scene introduced to the sports world in this recent story -- was a guest on CBS’s Early Show because, until he was 13, Allred was raised on a polygamist compound and, hey, waddya know, that’s newsworthy again! Early Show national news correspondent Hattie Kauffman did her best to steer Allred towards the topic at hand (SEX WITH LITTLE GIRLS!!!) but time and time again, Allred refused to, in his words, see the issue in “black and white.”
In the supremely awkward interview, Allred said that there were still family members he loved among the polygamists in his former home in Montana. He also said that, like all religions, there were both good and bad people in fundamentalist Mormonism. Allred spoke like a man who had been raised to see that the world is far too complex for simplistic labels.
Of course, as a reward for his candor, his insight, and his unwillingness to provide the sound bite she so desperately craved, Kauffman cut Allred off in the middle of a sentence, and threw it back to the newsroom for a story, no doubt, on how dental floss is killing your kids.
Click here for the video. – Caleb Hannan
Bravo, Lance!! Put those simple minded beauty queens and their brain-dead audience in their place!!
Posted at: April 10, 2008 2:00 PM