Mancow Waterboarding Called Into Question

Miami Herald:

I dunno, maybe actual NBC reporters don't want to come on Keith Olbermann's show since he took to bellowing insults at them on the air while anchoring the network's coverage of the Republican convention last year. Whatever the reason, he's now apparently resorted to faking stories. The media-news site Gawker has been reporting for two days that the video of waterboarding you can see up above was faked. And, Gawker adds (though, it should be noted, without attribution), Olbermann knew it.

Read the whole story: Miami Herald

Comments

[swan1]

Waterboard Gawker.

[drweh2]

Typical GOP spin -

But more importantly: why are blogs being reported as news? Any chucklehead can pay $5 per month for a host domain so they can spout whatever nonsense they want.

[Rjmartinelli]

Honestly, there's so much debate over whether or not it's torture that people don't stop and think about it.

If it wasn't torture, they wouldn't be saying they used it to get information. It's not a friendly way to get information, it's coerced upon fear of death.

That is the very DEFINITION of psychological if not (by many reports) physical torture.

[protagonia]

People who support waterboarding are ev!I.

[Stonybrooke2]

Fake! Fake!

[ebanks84]

I am absolutely bewildered that people can say it makes a difference whether it's a real waterboarding or a fake waterboarding, like your body is going to know the difference. If you haven't really experienced drowning, you CANNOT say such a foolish thing. When the body is taking in water that stops it from breathing, you will react period. And that's all there is to it. Anybody saying anything different has NEVER experienced drowning like I have.

[ebanks84]

People are getting so ridiculous nowadays that it's hard to do or say anthing that won't be taken completely out of context. Mancow's waterboarding was as real as real can get to HIM and that's because the marine who did the counting did it falsely and caught Mancow off guard. And because of that, I believe that's why he was prepared as he thought he was going to be.

Furthermore, this is just another rightwing caper to make it seem that the waterboarding event was just a hoax. Since it is against the law to do such a thing, the police investigated it and was told it was just a hoax and that got out and made the rightwing jump all over it like white on rice. For those of us who saw it, there was nothing fake about it. This is just another rightwing LIE to belittle Mancow for going against their talking points.

And Keith absolved Hannity because Mancow did it instead and Mancow is a republican so he decided to give him the donation instead because he knew Hannity WOULD NEVER do it; and he was so right about that. You people need to stop falling for all the rightwing lies and investigate on your own for a change.

[tarryd]

Sent to Glen Garvin of the Miami Herald who wrote the article:
Your source for all this is Gawker. Jeeeeeeeze Louise. Are you nuts? That is one of the most trashy blogs around. Of course, it was all show biz. You may have just fallen off a turnip truck but most of us recognized it for what it was...... a publicity stunt..... but one with a point. When Mancow did the stunt he most likely believed he could take it for more than 6 seconds and then claim water boarding was no big deal, thereby giving his buds Hannity and Rush as chance to yell "see!" But the stunt backfired and he had to make lemonade out of the lemon.

[tarryd]

Why in the world would a reputable newspaper quote Gawker? It is not a new source. They make things up out of thin air just to drive eyeballs to their site.

[hmmmmm]

Mancow is a fake

and we never landed on the moon.


ps who would like to buy my mountain home located just south of MIami??

more right wing damage control. distract, distract, distract. . . .

[ebanks84]

..and make up lies to discredit, discredit, discredit...

[phlashba]

Did anyone at HuffPo actually read the ridiculous Miami Herald article you linked to? "Hideously unpleasant"? Are you kidding me? Is that a Fox (NewsCorp) paper? Damn -- I really hate Miami (well ALL of Florida)

[Acleacius]

Surprised this fake story made it into the real news here. You guys maybe posted this out of some bizarre perceived fairness to?

Do you see any plugs in his nose?.Of course he can tap out and doesn't have the fear of being done by a hostile force, it doesn't prevent the physical sensation from occurring, duh!

Then with no evidence the jump to Olbermann, why not blame Obama too, the dem congress and senate, hell it was probably Clinton too. W T F?

[TheBlackCat]

Waterboarding a reported IS complete B.S. The whole point of waterboarding is that the prisoner doesn't know when, or IF, it's going to stop. They believe they may actually drown.

When a reporter, even one who is trying to prove that waterboarding IS bad, undergoes it, it's just ridiculous. They are completely in control of the situation. They are CHOOSING to be waterboarded, they can tap out at any time to stop it, and they KNOW that they aren't going to be waterboarded to the point that they are drowned.

No waterboarding done on a willing participant is legitimate waterboarding.

[TheBlackCat]

er, that should read, "Waterboarding undergone by a reporter IS complete B.S."

[ebanks84]

If you're ever put in a situation of drowning, your body doesn't seem to care whether you know it or not. It reacts accordingly.

[ClevelandTom]

I disagree. I know from experience that even when you know the waterboarding is an exercise and you're not going to die, you reach a point where your instincts kick in and you body tells you that you're drowning, no matter what the situation.

Now I don't know if Mancow's response is real or not. The treatment he got was pretty mild as waterboarding goes and he bailed out very quickly. Nevetheless, even if someone willingly submits to waterboarding, they are going to have pretty much the same sensations as an unwilling subject.

[TheBlackCat]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it isn't still a bad experience and that your instincts don't kick in. I'm not under the impression it isn't genuinely scary and produces sharp physical reactions, PSYCHOLOGICALLY it's not the same thing. A mock execution is not the same when you KNOW it's a mock execution.

[ebanks84]

That's the most stupid comment I've heard yet. Evidently you didn't watch the waterboarding at all or you would know that the countdown was a lie. And the person doing the waterboarding said he lied as he started pouring the water. It was too late then for Mancow to do anything but accept what was happening. Read more before you post stupid responses.

[swift goat pet for truth]

I believe what you want to say REAL waterboarding is WAY worse than these made for TV events.

[Rjmartinelli]

And doesn't that just say it all in regards to how horrible the real thing is and why we should never have done it to anyone?

The people who authorized and ordered this be done to our prisoners should be put on trial.

[jatkins]

===If you believe this BS==

Mancow wanted to prove it wasn't torture, so he was waterboarded. Except he was too scared to be waterboarded, so he faked it. And that somehow proves it's not torture.

Makes perfect sense!

[plzchuteme]

I don't claim to be on top of this waterboarding phenomena. It's never been done to me and I've never seen it done in earnest to anyone else. Mancow's exhibition wasn't exactly what I pictured based on written descriptions I had read. Was this exhibition less than genuine? I can't say. The thing that struck me as being fishy was not the actual waterboarding, but it was Olbermann's immediate proclamation that since someone had been waterboarded, Hannity was off the hook. I thought the whole idea was to get Hannity to be honest for once and to submit to the procedure and admit that it was torturous or to decline and admit that the idea frightened him too much. Either way, it would have shut him up and exposed him for what he is. What did Mancow's stunt prove to that end? Many people who have actually been waterboarded have weighed in on it's physical and psychological effects who have much more credibility than Mancow. In this case, Mancow may or may not have been a phony, but Keith Olbermann most certainly was. I was, and am an Olbermann fan (except when he tries to do sports) so I'm not just out to rip him. This may have been a not-so-clever ploy to extricate both Hannity and Olbermann from this silly feud without damage to either.

[ClevelandTom]

"Was this exhibition less than genuine?"

It was less than genuine in that the treatment he got wasn't very real. He wasn't restrained in any way and no one was pressing on his diaphram to force him to inhale. Whether or not his response was genuine, I don't know.

[ebanks84]

I can't believe that you are now blaming Keith Olbermann. How ridiculous can you get? Keith gave up $10,000 to a charity for what Mancow did. What is fake about that?

[plzchuteme]

Olbermann's point was to expose Hannity as a fraud which is why he made the challenge to him. Because someone else performed the stunt, and not even in response to Olbermann's challenge, doesn't really do the job. How does this satisfy the challenge? It was an easy way for Olbermann to put this behind him. He should have just given the $10,000 to charity and called it a day.

[ebanks84]

Anybody who has almost drowned would have credility, including myself. So there's no one who doesn't have credibility if they've ever experienced waterboarding or drowning. It's all the same, the taking in of water without being able to breathe.