{"id":273,"date":"2006-11-02T09:59:18","date_gmt":"2006-11-02T16:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=273"},"modified":"2011-07-04T08:03:52","modified_gmt":"2011-07-04T15:03:52","slug":"leave-it-to-blather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=273","title":{"rendered":"Leave It To Blather"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leave It To Blather<\/a>
\nWho would have thought that after 50 years the Cleaver brothers would be looked back upon as media visionaries? But the insight and stark analysis preserved in this video unmistakably marks them as the intellectual peers of Minow, McLuhan, and Colbert.<\/p>\n

This archival footage was discovered inadvertently while desperately searching for anything on television that wouldn’t induce vomiting. After hours of review (and 14 pints of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey), this startling and historically significant clip surfaced. TV will never be the same.<\/p>\n

The video linked above contains an actual clip from Leave It To Beaver. In the episode’s customary moralistic epilogue, the boys tackle the same defects in television news that Jon Stewart so elegantly skewered in his Crossfire appearance.<\/p>\n

To me, seeing this icon of innocence and family values humorously addressing a media problem that persists 50 years later, illustrates just how entrenched these problems are (and how easy they are to make fun of). But the fact that we’re still laughing at the same jokes is a bit disheartening. It’s not exactly an affirmation of progress.<\/p>\n

The parade of prattling pundits that populate the closing credits are only a taste of the Blathering Class that infects our national discourse with deceit, diversion and division. And yet, people watch. Are we gluttons for punishment, addicted to conflict, or just starved for knowledge and hoping some will inadvertently reveal itself?<\/p>\n

I don’t know. I guess I watch too much TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leave It To Blather Who would have thought that after 50 years the Cleaver brothers would be looked back upon as media visionaries? But the insight and stark analysis preserved in this video unmistakably marks them as the intellectual peers of Minow, McLuhan, and Colbert. This archival footage was discovered inadvertently while desperately searching for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,1,3,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-culture","category-general","category-graphix","category-humor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-4p","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4797,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4797","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":0},"title":"Leave It To Blather: A Holiday Memorial To The Media Madhouse","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/4\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of Independence Day I offer this reprise of a video I produced almost five years ago that embraces the naive wisdom found in the Golden Age of American television. Is this a great country or what? Who would have thought that after 50 years the Cleaver brothers would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art\/Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Art\/Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48410,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=48410","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":1},"title":"Biden Neglects Presidential Duty to Tweet and Post Flattering Videos of Himself","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/28\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Joe Biden has only been President for one week, but already the radical conservative scolds at Fox News and other right-wing lie factories are hounding him for not having solved all of the country's problems. After all, they are merely minor difficulties like a deadly pandemic, a cratering economy, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Joe Biden, Tweet","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/biden-tweet.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/biden-tweet.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/biden-tweet.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":43949,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=43949","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":2},"title":"Trump’s Jealousy of Bloomberg Kicks Off Hannity’s Super Bowl Suck-Up on Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/2\/2020","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Super Bowl Sunday and Fox News has decided to turn the traditional presidential interview into a Trump-fluffing pageant of propaganda. While Fox likes to pretend that it's a credible news organization, they can't help taking every opportunity to prove that that's a lie. So rather than assign the interview\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump Sean Hannity","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-hannity-mini-e1549743865260.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-hannity-mini-e1549743865260.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-hannity-mini-e1549743865260.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10612,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=10612","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":3},"title":"The Ted Cruz Plan To Kill ObamaCare: Speak Until He Can’t Stand","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/24\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Senate's most prominent opponent of ObamaCare, Ted Cruz (TX-Teabagger), has been battling ferociously to defund or otherwise dismantle the President's signature policy achievement. Today he may have finally come up with a winning strategy to defeat the health care law upon which he is so fixated. Cruz's new blueprint\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38255,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=38255","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":4},"title":"SRSLY? Fox News is Now Promoting Itself as the Exclusive Network for Trump Propaganda","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/21\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Anyone who has watched more than a couple of minutes of Fox News knows that it is a purveyor of non-stop Trump-fluffing. The program hosts are evangelists of White House doctrine, wholly devoted to the mission of the reality TV game show host currently playing the President of the United\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News, Donald Trump","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-state-tv-trump-rally.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-state-tv-trump-rally.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-state-tv-trump-rally.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3983,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3983","url_meta":{"origin":273,"position":5},"title":"Fox News Suspends Newt Gingrich And Rick Santorum Pending Presidential Campaign Plans","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/2\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Under pressure from within both political and media circles, Fox News has finally conceded that it is inappropriate to continue providing a free platform for presidential candidates who are also Fox News contributors. Well, some of them, anyway. Bret Baier announced this morning that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4798,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/4798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}