Olbermann, Mancow Interview: Mancow Discusses Being Waterboarded (VIDEO)

Keith Olbermann interviewed conservative radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller tonigh about his experience being waterboarded. Mancow said he agreed to be interviewed because Olbermann is a "stand up guy" for agreeing to donate $10,000 to a charity benefiting veterans (an offer previously extended to Sean Hannity) after Mancow was waterboarded.

Mancow reaffirmed that the practice was indeed torture and said that his "psychological state" going into the experiment was that he was "laughing at it. I was willing to prove, and ready to prove, that this was a joke, and I was wrong. It was horrific. It was instantaneous. And look, I felt the effects for two days."

Mancow also revealed that his friend Sean Hannity "called me and said 'it's still not torture.'"

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Comments

[americanalien]

Keith Olbermann is a national hero. He is the most honest guy on television. I love him!

[rukiddingmerightnow]

totally agree!

[Susan Moss]

Whether or not you view waterboarding as torture, all you have to do is read the red cross report listing all the various interrogation techniques found to be occurring at Gitmo to see that as a whole picture what we did to those people is inexcusable. Can you just imagine if one of our soldiers was made to be naked for months at a time, hung from the ceiling, taken to an unknown location for YEARS without access to the outside world to tell their family they were ok, put in a box and made to believe that they were going to buried alive, and oh yes, waterboarded. The argument that these people were animals and deserved this treatment or that "at least they didn't get beheaded" is not really the point. We were supposed to have the moral high ground and we've lowered ourselves to be just as evil as them, if not worse.

[PC Contrarian]

I was with you up to the last sentence; no we've not " lowered ourselves to be just as evil as them, if not worse."

[bushgirlsgone]

.

While being waterboarded, Mancow confesed to the Lindbergh kidnapping, the assassination of Lincoln, and sleeping with Barbara Bush.

[Jaskoen]

I can't stand Mancow, but kudos to him for doing this.

[DaveVDave]

It was funny watching Mancow be waterboarded. He really did not like to be waterboarded even though he is for it. I have to admit it did not look like it would be easy to deal with. I definitely would never Volunteer for it!

http://www.TheCommentDepot.com

[Roxanna]

This is great that someone from the right has taken a more honest approach towards torture..

Now if we can just get Cheney to volunteer for his own experience !

[Chi-townfool]

I don't think Cheney would change his mind even if he was waterboarded

[roncraw]

who really thinks Cheney has a mind?

[anniegirl9]

Then let him sign Liz up for it. The perception changes when it's someone you love.

Of course, that would assume that Cheney has the capacity for human emotion and Liz didn't just get lucky he didn't eat his own offspring.

[wolvie]

He could breathe thru his gills anyway

[rageagainstmachine]

I wouldn't exactly call this an honest approach. He was willing to put his money where his mouth is, I'll give him that, but honest? He thought waterboarding wasn't torture? Why, because he said so? Did he consult any military or intelligence interrogators? Did he read the literature? Did he review the language of the Geneva Conventions? He just pulled his declarative statement out of his rear end. I don't need to be raped to recognize that rape is a violent act. I don't need someone to rip off my fingernails to "get it". None of these "torture supporters" are being honest.

[Talaan77]

I think they meant honest in admitting he was wrong. He did not do it then pretend it was easy or nothing

[dansama]

Madness!! Its a war crime! Our country has admitted to and has the former leaders acknowledging ordering this practice preformed on persons in our custody; why wasn't Bush impeached? Why isn't he and Cheney and the rest under arrest?

So all these country first Americans say we should line up behind Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge and Imperial Japan and other wonderful examples of human rights and POW treatment because they used waterboarding so that makes it legal and ok? What do you have a problem putting Bush's administration in the same sentence as genocidal regimes? Ask the 1 Million dead Iraq's or the who know how many Afgan's who had died if we are an over reaching, violent, cruel empire, they might think we are and that is sad for America.

[miatamama]

I fear this stunt has provided a "How to.." video for every teenage bully in America.

[Son of a Rich]

When "Mancow" was waterboarded they poured the water directly onto his face. I was under the impression that the usual method was to pour the water through a cloth, though I don't know what difference it makes.

[traceminerals]

I've read somewhere that the cloth actually worsens the experience because it adds suffocation to the equation..­.not really a sensation of suffocation but actual, albeit temporary, suffocation. For a common sense approach, just put a sodden cloth over your nose and mouth, lay back and try to breathe--not as easy. So that, plus the water in the nose, makes it worse as it's even harder, if not impossible, to breathe enough to not put the body into an automatic state of panic due to lack of oxygen.

[NonLeftist]

Mancow also said this about waterboarding. "It is absolutely torture, And you know what? I don't care. If it saves American lives.....­......." Mancow, I could not agree with you more.

[a3w]

But it doesn't. It doesn't save lives.

[Scent]

Now, don´t go and baffle wuch a perfect statement with something as silly as facts. Or even laws.

You seem to forget that righties are also strong believers. - So they don´t have to explain it. - You havr to believe it ;o).

[Scent]

Wow! - I am impressed.

Not only do You totally misinterpret what he was saying - and a rightie misquoting another rightie IS something of a surprise - you then go and say it´s ok to do it. - If it saves american lives.

Well, let me tell You something people like You seem to have forgotten: The cosntitution expressly does NOT make a distinction between american lives and the lives of others. - Maybe - and I am guessing here now - that is why they call it HUMAN rights.

So if you put what You say to the reality of the constitution - or what´s left of it after your pals were done with it - the very same argument would allow anyone who was ever illegally attacked by american Soldiers or companies to torutre anyone under that very same pretext - to save lives.

What torture does not do however, IS save lives. Of course that isn´t what it was used for in the first place. It was used to make people like YOU feel better. - Because someone was punished, no matter if he did anything or not.

Becaus if You cared one whiff about the victims of torture heving done anything, You would have persisted in calling for due process. You didn´t. For YOU it is engough when someone takes a goatherder from Afghanistan and tortures him without trial, without proof or even something as flimsy as a good reason.

[factotem]

In order for checks and balances to work, and the rule of law to prevail, these 4 parties MUST be different entities:

Party A - Secret Legislator / I have declared torture legal in opposition to our own constitution.
Party B - Overt Legislator / I have declared the detainees to be terrorists, and the detainees cannot have access to the media.
Party C - Executive / I demand the military capture more Arab detainees (regardless of guilt) to lock away, so I can look like a strong leader and I can say I'm "tough on terrorism. " when I campaign for office.
Party D - Judiciary or Committee / Without presenting any evidence to the public, I have determined this torture saved (insert big, scary number) lives.

Under Bush all 4 were purposely converged, and Bush/Cheney pursued their conflict of interest with a web of lies, just as this scam was designed to allow. No organism external to the whole process was in a position to question/deny any of the 4 motives or halt their actions.

This is fundamental to American democracy as framed by the founders.
Noone in journalism or the opposition EVER clarifies this!!!!

[willman81]

My guess is that when this "interrogation technique" is being used in the field, the prisoner does not have the ability to call timeout.

[CynAnne]

Just wanted to let my fellow HuffPos know that Keith's guest tomorrow night is none other than Jesse Ventura..y­ou know I'll be watching, libations and liberal 'tude at the ready for what will surely be "Smackdown '09: Hammity Hammered Flat"..! ;) ...

[gothicus]

jesse is a broken record. he needs some new material.

[bigbluenat4]

You mean unlike Cheney? Jesse says WB is "T" period.

[RJII]

thanks for speaking honestly Mancow. I think its t0rture, but I still didn't understand the full extent of it. Wow.

[Scalie]

As I was watching this on Olbermann's show, I thought how wonderful it is to have MSNBC's Olbermann, Maddow, and Matthews. Tamra's delivery is not bad either. Facts, truths and delivery in cable news is all we want.

[joceeco]

Rachel and Keith are the only truth seekers on MSNBC. Matthews is easily persuaded by his guest, whether they are republican or democrat, and Tamra wouldn't know a good question to ask her guest, even if someone wrote one for her and put it on the promter for her to read...oh wait, someone does, and she still efs it up!