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

[justsaynosarahp]

Who you gonna believe? Me, or your own eyes?
--Groucho Marx

[santamonica39]

what kind of reporting is this on the part of the Miami Herald? They're just repeating something from teh Gawker, with no substantiation, no effort to reach Mancow or Olberman for a quote? LAME

[nomobull]

sloppy

[avshanbh]

Why don't waterboarding supporters prove it's not torture by going through it themselves?

[PresidentRobertBooth]

Garvin (the guy who wrote the Miami Herald article) should check his facts.

Keith Olbermann didn't organise Mancow's waterboarding. He merely covered the story on Countdown.

[nomobull]

and he wasn't the first or only. i smell desperation.

[LouHobbs]

Waterboarding is a myth. Like the moon landings or female orgasms.

[BabblingBrooks]

Now that is funny! Thanks.

[bigbluenat4]

so the answer that the right comes up with, Mancow "faked"it? did the MH read their own article before deciding on a title? so as far as the right is concerned, anyone who does it, then says it is "T", is automatically "faking" it? Yet, none of them will do it? sad little "T" supporters.

[dnno1]

This is spin of the highest order. Water-boarding is torture. Don't try this at home.

[TakingBackTheUSA]

So this was "faked" because the Marine they brought in had not done it before? It's well proven that the staff of the prisons that were doing the waterboarding were not "trained" either. Sounds like it is a closer approximation than they want to admit.

[BabblingBrooks]

1) "staff of prisons" weren't doign waterboarding, so how can it be well proven? If all the things that were well proven were actually true...

2) "If everybody knows something," then it probably isn't true.--Robert A. Heinlein

[TakingBackTheUSA]

It's proven that they were not trained interrogators doing the actual waterboardings.

Interesting quote. Good point.

[Freenation]

ok..so does this mean he gave up before even attempting...i think it is even a bigger win...

[entropy2]

If Mancow did fake it, then so what? He wouldn't be any worse than the rest of the Repubs. Lots of tough talk, but chickenhawk at heart.

[OleLadySquawking]

How do you fake pouring water on someone's face? Use fake water?

[nomobull]

"winner"!

[viewfromuphere]

what am I missing here......isn't this Mancow dude a rightwinger???....why would he try to be proving waterboarding to be torture????

and whatever one thinks of Mancow....Hitchens...another supporter of the Iraq war, etc....submitted to waterboarding and described it as torture

[BroMan]

He did it because he wanted to prove otherwise, that it was not torture, but he was wrong, and he admitted it.

[BabblingBrooks]

1) Mancow is a comedian talk show host.
2) Who ever said right wingers were not interested in the truth? It's the left wing that doesn't care if something is true or not--the definition is, if they believe it, it's true, whether it is or not.

[viewfromuphere]

I'm sure there are right wingers interested in the truth and one them submitting himself to waterboarding and described it as torture....

like the Mancow dude...

to try to now make claims of fraud based on what Gawker thinks it has as evidence does that particular right winger quite the disservice..

but he wouldn't the first thrown under a bus because he said something the right idealoques didn't want to hear.

so when does that General Patraous join him for stating that the US may have broken
the Geneva Convention..

[TakingBackTheUSA]

Since when has anything that wasn't right leaning come out of Florida?
I believe that this was the same paper that started the Olberman vs Maddow over Affleck tripe.
Credibility is definitely something that the mentioned paper aspires to...

[jordan3189]

Still waiting for that link showing fox in 3x the markets msnbc is in.

[ccclj]

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/05/29/cable-news-tv-ratings-for-thursday-may-28/19647#more-19647

[ccclj]

CABLE NEWS RACE
THURS., MAY 29, 2009

FOXNEWS OREILLY 3,526,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,474,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,009,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,871,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,834,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,787,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,298,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,029,000
CNNHN GRACE 915,000
CNN COOPER 852,000

[BabblingBrooks]

Louis Gossett, Jr: "Where you from, boy?"

"Kansas, sir."

Louis Gossett, Jr: "Only things come from Kansas are steers and qu--rs! Which one are you?"

Are you trying to start some sort of comedy routien with that Florida bit?

[TakingBackTheUSA]

An excellent quote. Good movie.

Not trying to start any comedy, but is it not an accurate assessment that Florida is well known to be a predominantly Republican state?

[alenaspoppa]

Read the Gawker article:

http://gawker.com/5272691/mancows-waterboarding-was-completely-fake

It's pretty clear that Mancow thought this was going to be a funny stunt and that the guy performing the waterboarding had never done it before, but Mancow's reaction to it is completely real.

"It was a marine who did it," Muller said. "I don't know his training. Is he a professional interrogator? I don't think so. But he knew what to do. If I wanted to fake it, it would have lasted for six minutes—I lasted six seconds."

"Of course I wasn't a radical terrorist," he said. "Of course it was simulated. To compare what I went through to what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed went through—of course it was not the same. I'm sure it was worse for them."

The people at Gawker and the Miami Herald article are being deliberately misleading in their interpretation of the facts of the story. The conclusions they've drawn buckle under the weight of the facts of the story.

[Principaldad]

Exactly right. I read that article. The facts did not support the title in any way.

[RobinSeattle]

It's really hard to buy the writer's argument about the Mancow waterboarding stunt.

If this does prove to be a hoax, Mancow's career is over. His rightwing fans will abandon him in droves and he will spend weeks having to defend himself in the media about all this.

As for Olbermann being taken in by the stunt, well, Fox News got bamboozled by articles in THE ONION, for crying out loud. SEVERAL TIMES! Moreover if it can be proved that Olbermann knew about the hoax, NBC will do to him what CBS did to Dan Rather. Again, it stretches the bounds of credibility that Keith would take that risk.

[jordan3189]

Yeah right, he'd do it in a second.

[nomobull]

cue twilight zone music