Talk-Show Host Mancow Waterboarded: Says It’s ‘Absolutely Torture’

Posted By on May 22, 2009 | 14 comments

What happens when a talk show host gets waterboarded to see if its REALLY torture — someone who had believed it wasn’t? Mancow Muller of Chicago’s Big 89, WLS-AM Mancow & Cassidy show decided to do it so his listeners (and viewers like you) could see it.

What did he conclude? “It is way worse than I thought it would be…I don’t want to say this. I do not want to say this. Absolutely torture. That’s drowning.”

Here’s the You Tube so you can watch it and draw your own conclusions:

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The Chicago Sun Times’ piece here includes videos of two others who thought they’d give it a whirl in past months, Playboy.com journalist Mike Guy and journalist Christopher Hitchens. Here’s Hitchens who says it’s baloney to say it “simulates” drowning. “It is drowning…” he says:

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(So far Sean Hannity, who suggested he might undergo it since it’s really not big a deal hasn’t tried it and to the best of anyone’s knowledge former Vice President Dick Cheney hasn’t tried it, either.)

NBC Chicago has a must read piece. Here’s a part of it:

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’ ”

Last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment — and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward.

“Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture,” Hitchens concluded in the article.

However, these demonstration videos are a bit misleading: the people being waterboarded here aren’t in captivity. And the waterboarding is being done under controlled circumstances (varying in each demonstration). They also know that they won’t be waterboarded until they pass out, puke their guts out, or die. Not so for those who undergo the real thing. But, then, the debate isn’t over that: it’s whether it’s a valid or moral means of reliable information extraction.


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  • Silhouette

    Well I think I have the perfect solution for Dick Cheney's dilemma…

    He wants out of being prosecuted very badly. We cut him a deal: on national TV with credible witnesses from all of the MSM, he gets waterboarded. If he maintains without flinching for 30 seconds during the torture, we let him off all charges.

    How about it? Anyone? Good idea? eh?

  • RevDave

    American Torture Idol – all of the Bush kingpins and a couple of others for fun (Gingrich, Rush) – best torture performance gets OFF the table, others keep coming back for more. Let's find out how the feel about it after that.

  • EEllis

    I'm not sure of the point. We are talking about a legal definition, how people who undergo water boarding feel really doesn't affect the legal definition. Sure the reasoning is convoluted at best but we are talking about lawyers, it's what they do. Doesn't make people experience less valid just two different things. I'm not sure what the point is exactly to this.

  • Rudi

    I liked what Jesse Ventura said about the Dark One. If Cheney was waterboarded, the Manson clan would be released because DICK would confess to killing Sharon Tate. Charlie Manson was framed…

  • http://twitter.com/empireofno Paul in London

    funny how cons bang on that it's not torture but in next breath claim waterboarding is “effective” because it makes people say things. now, how does that happen i suppose? and why should anyone believe that what someone says, when they will say anything to get you to stop what you're doing, is the truth?

    waterboarding was used to manufacture evidence to justify an invasion of iraq. george bush and dick cheney must be prosecuted: for torture, war crimes and treason for having used torture to create evidence that would be used to justify a war of pure aggression.

  • HemmD

    EEllis

    “I'm not sure of the point. We are talking about a legal definition, how people who undergo water boarding feel really doesn't affect the legal definition.”

    Actually, the fear of imminent death is part of torture's definition. That's why making prisoners play russian roulette is also torture. Is that clear now?

  • EEllis

    No it's not clear. Repeating something adnosium doesn't make it clearer either. It meets the definition or it doesn't. Panic attacks by talk show host should not be considered evidence of squat. Is that clear enough for you? Hell I'm not even arguing about water boarding just why it matters about what random people think about it.

  • jcrew

    Either these guys, Cheney and Bush, are criminals, or the guys who sentenced and condemned others in the past for waterboarding Americans are. You can't have it both ways. You are wrong when you say that how the victim feels does not affect the definition because that is exactly what defines the procedure as torture. Legal schmegal–if it has already been used and condemned by the American government, it is illegal. To say that because we desire to suddenly use it on our enemies makes it legal is the worst form of arrogance and only makes us look like the condescending tyrants our enemies claim that we are.

  • EEllis

    jcrew get your facts straight. There are a number of differences between the two situations. If you are speaking of the Japanese during WWII the “waterboarding” also consisted of forcing water into US solders until they ingested so much that their bellies were distended and bloated, then beating and jumping on their stomachs. More than a bit of difference between the two. Even if waterboarding is torture it is not the same as what was done in WWII to US solders or what was done in the Philippines in the Spanish American war.
    Also the situations were different. None of the other people were tried under US domestic law. The Japanese violated the Geneva Convention and were prosecuted for war crimes. The detainees are not protected by the convention and torture if occurred could only be prosecuted under civil or military law. In the Philippines US solders were prosecuted under the USCMJ. But that's not a law it's only for the military and the adminitration can change it and or exempt individuals from part of it. Many things are violations that are perfectly legal for civilians. Trying to equate those events is lazy, dishonest, or ignorant of the facts. You say “You are wrong when you say that how the victim feels does not affect the definition because that is exactly what defines the procedure as torture.”
    Easy enough to prove just show the US anti torture statute and we'll see. Personal I don't know that as a fact and obviously you don't either. The justice Department said this
    “For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture,” the memo said, “it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.” Examples include the development of mental disorders, drug-induced dementia, “post traumatic stress disorder which can last months or even years, or even chronic depression.”
    I don't know that what ManCow experienced rises to this level, what do you think? The US anti torture statute defines torture as

    (1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
    (2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
    (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
    (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
    (C) the threat of imminent death; or
    (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
    (3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.

    At first it would seem to bolster your case but then look closer

    “prolonged mental harm”

    That is the question isn't it? Obviously what would be torture to use on some people wouldn't be torture to others. So what happened to this idiot DJ doesn't define waterboarding for others. Of course that's good for you because it wasn't legally torture for mancow and it would blow your case out of the water.

  • zcross

    EEllis – Is there a reason you are taking up space on this planet? With all the breathing your parasitic little life must require? The electricity needed to sustain your miserable existence? The price of a keyboard so that you can ramble ad nauseam and pollute honest discourse on a topic common sense warns is actually torture? Is your life that silly and inane that you feel the unselfish need to repay your debt to society by denigrating people simply because torture is not torture as your grand poobah wizard didn't wear plaid the very day he decreed torture was not torture when performed on Tuesdays?

    Do the world a favor, get out on the front lines, put yourself in harms way, stop a bullet for a buddy or cause since your talents are truly wasted here.

    3 tours and yes… its torture.

  • EEllis

    Hey dumbass where did I say it wasn't. Learn to fucking read. I said it doesn't matter what some idiot DJ says about it. You idiots are so busy circle jerkin that what others say just doesn't seem to get thru.

  • Pete Abel

    EEllis and zcross — please review our comments policy (here: http://themoderatevoice.com/comment-policy-impo…) and please refrain from any future name-calling or profanity. Thank you. — Pete Abel, Managing Editor, TMV

  • zcross

    EEllis – Learn to read? This coming from the mental midget that mispelled “adnosium”? Funny… and all too sad.

    Mr Abel – Do what you like, I used no profanity. However I will not sit by while this imbecile misrepresents doctern and legallity that puts me and others in harms way.

  • EEllis

    No problem Pete, got a little pissed about the unjustified attack, not to mention the idea that I need to be shot because my opinion differed from someone else.

    Again with the insults zcross? What did I misrepresent? The US statute on torture? No that was a straight cut and past that is what it says. The fact that the idiot DJ's experience would have no impact on that statute applying? Nope, again what “HE” experience clearly doesn't meet the standard.

    That waterboading is torture was not something I addressed at all, just the absurdity of using that publicity stunt to try and “prove” torture.

    I also try and respect the anonymity of people posted on blogs. If you want to use some personal experience on knowledge as a point on a post I do believe that then you have to come out from that anonymity to establish that experience and allow others to judge what weight it should be given. To someone who has only 2 posts ever (under the name zcross anyway) to reference military service as a as a way of shutting down debate……….. well I'm a sceptic in general and on this I will with hold judgment, but many have served zcross.