MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on tonight's "Countdown" pledged to donate $10,000 to charity after disc jockey Erich "Mancow" Muller was waterboarded today on live radio, in an attempt to prove the technique was "not torture." After six seconds Muller said it was "absolutely torture" and that were he to be interrogated by the use of waterboarding he would "confess to anything." Olbermann promised to donate $10,000 to the charity Veterans of Valor, founded by Sgt. Klay South, who administered the waterboarding to Muller today, and withdrew his offer to Sean Hannity to make a donation to the charity of his choice if he followed through on his offer to undergo waterboarding.
Hannity's a blowhard idiot. He was never going to do it, because he knows it's torture and he's blowing smoke about it. Video of Muller's waterboarding is here.
Now for the serious questions.
"I'm genuinely surprised that he was surprised that it was that bad," writes Marshall. "I'm not saying that for effect. Muller really seemed to think it was like getting dunked by your friend in a pool or something. Just factually, everyone who knows anything about this says that it's horrific and you pretty much instantly feel like you're drowning and at the edge of death. And it's a physiological response. So even if you've gone through it ten times and know rationally that you don't die, it doesn't matter. You're instantly put back into the mental space of drowning and being at the edge of death.
"I must confess that when I see Hannity or the rest of these guys saying it's no big deal and it's not torture, I kind of figured they're playing semantic games and essentially saying 'I don't care what we do to evil Muslim terrorist bad guys.' Hang them from them toes, waterboard them, whatever, who cares... But here it turns out they're just completely ignorant, just haven't been paying attention. Just in the purest factual sense have no idea what they're talking about."
It is interesting that Muller went into this completely convinced that it wouldn't be torture. And, of course, that's why he agreed to do it and Hannity hasn't -- Hannity's a liar who knows it's torture and this "Mancow" guy's just an idiot. In addition to Marshall's conclusions, this really makes you wonder what these people think it is if it isn't torture and why it would work if it were just... I don't know, annoying, maybe.
It's like I often say, conservatives have a bad tendency to think things through to the point that they reach the conclusions they want to reach -- then they stop thinking. Whether the equation's finished or not, they've got the answer they want. Why spoil it by following the line of reasoning all the way to the end?
They don't get the equation of waterboarding and torture because they don't want to get it. It's a form of deliberately nurtured cognitive dissonance.
