Did Dick Cheney Watch "Leave it to Beaver"?

I recently canceled my Cable in favor of the free HD channels available in my area. Never in my life did I think I would one day enjoy decimal channels. For instance channel 4.2 gives me This! channel, which runs excellent old, forgotten movies like Jodie Foster in the 1976 film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. On channel 7.2, I get the Retro Channel, where I watch Kojak, Quincy, Emergency! and The Incredible Hulk. I love old television. I just wish they aired the original commercials that went with those shows, but alas, this is not an a la carte world.

I recently saw an episode of Leave it to Beaver in which a new kid in Beaver's class took to stealing things and giving them to people, so that his classmates would like him. After a misstep led him to being caught in possession of a stolen item, the new kid panicked and said that Beaver was the thief. Beaver's teacher, Miss Landers, took the bull by the horns and got to the bottom of the controversy, unearthing the fact that the new kid was, in fact, the thief, and Beaver just an unwitting dupe. There ensued several lectures and soliloquys about the evil of stealing, given by Miss Landers and Mrs. Cleaver. Stealing was spoken of with same dread and gravity as incest or murder, if not with slightly more disgust. Mrs. Cleaver, in particular, mused mournfully over the sad, degenerate state of "the new kid" felt he had to steal in order to get others to like him. All was put right by the end of the episode, but I, along with the original audience, was left shaken and contemplative.

Amid my contemplation, I wondered if Dick Cheney had seen it when it originally aired in the late '50's. Being a member of the Woodstock Generation (albeit, non-participating), I wondered if Cheney watched Leave it to Beaver and what he made of the lessons it taught. I then wondered how he would fair under the virginal, holy light of Miss Lander's gaze. What contortions would the fluid-sac that passes for a soul within Dick Cheney perform under the stinging, just weight of Miss Lander's interrogation?

Unfortunately, I think Cheney would have merely lunged forward and bitten Miss Landers on the face. Surely, her holy-water blood would have curdled in his fetid mouth, but the damage would be done.

Maybe the pompadored 17 year old Cheney opted to watch more manly fare, such as Chuck Connors in The Rifleman (another staple on my Retro TV station), what with its distinctly masturbatory opening of Connors bracing a rifle butt against his groin and rapidly firing the weapon. I'm sure Cheney was re-enacting that classic opening when he accidentally shot his hunting partner in the face a few years ago.



It's an oft-debated subject in the media whether violence on television and in video games gives rise to violent children. If there's any merit to such dubious logic, then I wonder what it was about Howdy Doody, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, etc., that gave us the Vietnam War, Enron, AIG and Rush Limbaugh. A thorough study should be made of Daniel Boone and Ol' Yeller, among other popular films of the time, to ascertain just what about those movies planted the seeds for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and soon, in Yemen.

A congressional investigative committee should be assembled immediately to determine: Did Dick Cheney watch Leave it to Beaver?