Mancow is Waterboarded + Olbermann Hannity Challenge

Erich "Mancow" Muller, conservative American disc jockey, underwent a waterboarding session administered by Sargeant Klay South, founder of Veterans of Valor on May 22, 2009 in studio. Mancow believed prior to the session that waterboarding should not be considered torture and thus agreed to experience it first hand in an attempt to demonstrate its usability.

He owned up to a question previously asked by Sean Hannity of Fox Network who challenged the categorization of waterboarding as torture; the debate was further fueled by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC who pledged that if Hannity submitted to waterboarding, Olbermann would donate to charity $1,000 USD for every second Hannity could endure.

Mancow earned massive points with liberals and conservatives alike for being willing to experience this interrogation technique first hand. Sean Hannity on the other hand is made to look quite spineless.

Honoring the original offer, Olbermann also confirmed he will donate a total of $10k USD to Veterans of Valor for Mancow's efforts.

Here's the original Olbermann/Hannity challenge as well as some spot-commentary on how "effective" this technique actually is. It is a scary question to ponder: if you were being waterboarded, would you care more about telling the truth or stopping the drowning?

Epilogue: Mancow immediately following his waterboarding session emerged with different views on whether it should be considered torture. "It is way worse than I thought it would be. Look, all that's been done to this country and I heard about water being dropped on someone's face. I never considered it torture even when I was laying there and I thought, this is going to be no big deal, I go swimming, this is going to be being in the tub. It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose and your mouth with your head back. It was instantaneous. I thought I could hold out 30 seconds, 60 seconds. It was instantaneous. It was....I don't want to say this....I do not want to say this....absolutely torture. Absolutely. That's drowning."

Vanity Fair contributor Christopher Hitchens went through a similar exercise almost a year ago with, not surprisingly, the same effects and conclusions; you can read about it here.