What do you call the dumbest sportscaster in the world? The smartest political analyst on MSNBC.
In case you aren't one of the few people who watch Keith Olbermann's show, let me introduce you to him. He’s a sportscaster who now has a political show on the lowest rated of the three cable news networks. MSNBC once had Olbermann doing political analysis while paired with Chris Matthew's leg. The two were so biased toward the left side of politics that MSNBC, an unabashedly liberal network, had to break them up. Olbermann is the one who while speaking tends to change his voice to a weird, garbled noise that makes him sound like Scooby Doo.
A hallmark of Olbermann's show is that under no circumstances will he ever have on a guest who disagrees with him. Whether you are a fan or not of the political shows on Fox News, their hosts constantly have on people who hold opinions different than the host. Adversaries make for political conversations instead of dictates. Even a liberal such as Bill Maher on his HBO show gets high marks for having on conservatives who disagree with him. Olbermann distorts the truth on his show so much he won’t dare have on a guest who will expose him.
Who is Mancow? A radio "shock jock" from Chicago. He's a Howard Stern knock-off in a long line of Howard Stern knock-offs who collectively prove the point that as with photocopiers and fax machines, copies are never as good as the original.
Olbermann and Mancow were on two different sides of the debate about whether waterboarding is "torture," with Olbermann believing so and Mancow believing no. Of course I've never seen or heard either of them flash on the television screen or read on the radio the actual definition of torture as contained in the Geneva or UN Conventions, but they aren't alone in that. I've watched hundreds of talking heads opine on television whether waterboarding is or isn't torture without making a single reference to the only legal documents that actually answer the question. “What is torture?” is a legal question, not a question to be decided by whether Christopher Hitchens enjoyed himself while doing it, or if President Obama likes it.
So Mancow, who is billed by the media as a conservative (without supplying a reason that proves it) decided he would be waterboarded on his radio show. After 6 seconds of water poured onto his face he sprang up and declared he has changed his mind and now believes waterboarding is torture. And the liberal heavens parted.
Although Mancow is someone liberals heretofore wouldn't spit on were he on fire, they suddenly believed Mancow's words as they would the word of God (or the word of Christopher Hitchens, who doesn't believe in God). Liberal pundits and nutroot liberal blogs believed they could now make the same call little league baseball players make on a close play at second base when a teammate of the runner thinks he was out: "See, that's your own man saying so!" As if Mancow were an RNC spokesperson.
No one seized on the Mancow claim that waterboarding is torture with as much zeal as Keith Olbermann, who dedicated a segment on his show to Mancow's waterboarding. Risking completely his reputation on Mancow and moving his chips all in, Olbermann actually said, "The torture debate ended today." Incredible.
Enter the website Gawker, who makes it their job to beat up celebrities. Gawker is like the TV show South Park - if they beat up someone you don't like and you declare yourself a fan, next week they are likely to beat up someone you do like and you'll have to eat your words. Love Gawker or hate them, a hat tip goes to them for blowing the lid off of Olbermann being punked by Mancow, because his waterboarding was a hoax and his opinion that it was "torture" was predetermined.
Gawker published emails from behind the scenes at Mancow's show admitting the waterboarding was a hoax. Specifically, one email came from Mancow's publicist, Linda Schafran, whose other clients include the likes of Jerry Springer. While looking for someone to play the role of Mancow’s waterboarding interrogator, Linda was asked in an email if Mancow would "really be tortured?" In reply, Linda emailed the following answer revealing the waterboarding would be faked:
"It is going to have to look "real" but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning. It will be a hoax but have to look real. Would be great if they could dress in fatigues and bring whatever is needed. We will supply the water"
Game, set, match. Knowing now that this was a phony stunt to make it look like waterboarding, a review of the video shows how it was faked.
In actual waterboarding, the terrorist's head is on a decline so gravity can pull water up his nose. Not only was Mancow's head not on a decline, you can hear him tell the "interrogator" to hold his nose closed with his fingers - not once but twice - even grabbing the interrogators hand at one point to direct him to pinch his nose in the right place (who was running this event? The “interrogator” later admitted to Gawker he never did this before).
There is one camera on Mancow's left, but another video shows it from Mancow's right. In the camera on his right you get a clear shot that Mancow CLOSED HIS LIPS when the water came down. The "interrogator" then pours the water on his neck and chest, as Mancow spits what little water entered his mouth. When he returns to Mancow's mouth, Mancow hops up from the procedure. All in 6 seconds. Mancow then blows his nose, obviously a theatrical effect since he had made sure the interrogator held his nose tight.
The best evidence that Mancow barely got a drop was the sound of his voice upon popping up. Christopher Hitchens, whose waterboarding was at least real, described how it causes your throat to involuntarily tighten. In that video you can see Christopher flushed, laboring for breath and speech after his waterboarding. Mancow began a monologue when he got up. He was not red faced like Hitchens nor was his voice different. I doubt he took in any water at all. This was, by the admission of Mancow's staff after all, a hoax.
So Gawker nailed Mancow on his hoax, but Olbermann's problem was he already invested in it as real. Keith had 2 choices: Take the high road and admit he'd been had, or continue the hoax at considerable expense to his integrity. He chose the latter.
Mancow could have saved face by admitting the hoax and having Ashton Kutcher join him in telling Olbermann, “You’ve been punked!” but he too took the low road.
On Friday, May 29, Olbermann had Mancow on his show for damage control. The best they could come up with was "please don't believe the email." According to them, the email only says it’s a hoax “one time” (as if one time isn't enough). To the contrary, it says so 5 times. Let me highlight those 5 times in the email:
"It is going to have to look "real" but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning. It will be a hoax but have to look real."
If the waterboarding was going to be real, the answer to the question whether it was going to be real would have been a simple "yes," not the quadruple no Schafran put in her email.
Then Mancow and Olbermann went below gutter level to try to deflect attention from their ruse. Mancow compared his 6-second face wash to the tragic, accidental hanging death of Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter last week. Disgusting. Normally Olbermann would spend a week of outrage on that atrocity, giving Mancow a worst person award for life. Blinded by self-interest, Olbermann didn't even wince. Stay classy, MSNBC.
For another deflection of the spotlight that cooks him, Olbermann keeps pointing out that Sean Hannity has never been waterboarded (which is somehow a license for Olbermann to conduct a Nixonian cover up?). Let's look at the reason why it would be useless for Hannity to be waterboarded; as useless as it was for Hitchens to be and for Mancow to pretend to be.
Will Hannity choke on the water and experience anxiety when waterboarded? Of course - we don't do it to terrorists to make their stay pleasant. Hannity will turn red, cough and have to catch his breath like Hitchens did. A minute later he will be fine though, which is why this isn't torture. For torture - see John McCain's arm, which will never heal.
More to the point though, Hannity will not be asked by his "interrogator" to give up a wanted secret, just as Hitchens and Mancow were not asked. That's the point of waterboarding - to scare someone into giving information. Simulations designed to prove waterboarding is uncomfortable and scary only proves what we already know.
Were I to be experimentally waterboarded, I'd insist on first having a secret the "interrogator" wanted badly and then see if he can get me to say it by waterboarding.
There are two reasons why liberals who claim waterboarding is torture will never agree to such a test. If I didn't spill the secret after waterboarding, that would weigh against their argument that it is a severe technique that is torture. If I DID spill the secret, they would have to admit it works, which they are desperate not to do. That is exactly why President Obama refuses to agree to Dick Cheney’s request to release memos that reveal the secrets given to us by the 3 terrorist we waterboarded. The President doesn't want to admit waterboarding worked while only scaring, not torturing, the terrorists.
The debate over waterboarding being torture or not rests not with simulations but with a review of the Geneva and UN Conventions (a debate I invite). All we've really confirmed with experiments and simulations is that Hitchens is too out of shape to hold his breath a few seconds and “the Sportscaster” and “Howard Stern-lite” have no credibility, which we already knew.
In case you aren't one of the few people who watch Keith Olbermann's show, let me introduce you to him. He’s a sportscaster who now has a political show on the lowest rated of the three cable news networks. MSNBC once had Olbermann doing political analysis while paired with Chris Matthew's leg. The two were so biased toward the left side of politics that MSNBC, an unabashedly liberal network, had to break them up. Olbermann is the one who while speaking tends to change his voice to a weird, garbled noise that makes him sound like Scooby Doo.
A hallmark of Olbermann's show is that under no circumstances will he ever have on a guest who disagrees with him. Whether you are a fan or not of the political shows on Fox News, their hosts constantly have on people who hold opinions different than the host. Adversaries make for political conversations instead of dictates. Even a liberal such as Bill Maher on his HBO show gets high marks for having on conservatives who disagree with him. Olbermann distorts the truth on his show so much he won’t dare have on a guest who will expose him.
Who is Mancow? A radio "shock jock" from Chicago. He's a Howard Stern knock-off in a long line of Howard Stern knock-offs who collectively prove the point that as with photocopiers and fax machines, copies are never as good as the original.
Olbermann and Mancow were on two different sides of the debate about whether waterboarding is "torture," with Olbermann believing so and Mancow believing no. Of course I've never seen or heard either of them flash on the television screen or read on the radio the actual definition of torture as contained in the Geneva or UN Conventions, but they aren't alone in that. I've watched hundreds of talking heads opine on television whether waterboarding is or isn't torture without making a single reference to the only legal documents that actually answer the question. “What is torture?” is a legal question, not a question to be decided by whether Christopher Hitchens enjoyed himself while doing it, or if President Obama likes it.
So Mancow, who is billed by the media as a conservative (without supplying a reason that proves it) decided he would be waterboarded on his radio show. After 6 seconds of water poured onto his face he sprang up and declared he has changed his mind and now believes waterboarding is torture. And the liberal heavens parted.
Although Mancow is someone liberals heretofore wouldn't spit on were he on fire, they suddenly believed Mancow's words as they would the word of God (or the word of Christopher Hitchens, who doesn't believe in God). Liberal pundits and nutroot liberal blogs believed they could now make the same call little league baseball players make on a close play at second base when a teammate of the runner thinks he was out: "See, that's your own man saying so!" As if Mancow were an RNC spokesperson.
No one seized on the Mancow claim that waterboarding is torture with as much zeal as Keith Olbermann, who dedicated a segment on his show to Mancow's waterboarding. Risking completely his reputation on Mancow and moving his chips all in, Olbermann actually said, "The torture debate ended today." Incredible.
Enter the website Gawker, who makes it their job to beat up celebrities. Gawker is like the TV show South Park - if they beat up someone you don't like and you declare yourself a fan, next week they are likely to beat up someone you do like and you'll have to eat your words. Love Gawker or hate them, a hat tip goes to them for blowing the lid off of Olbermann being punked by Mancow, because his waterboarding was a hoax and his opinion that it was "torture" was predetermined.
Gawker published emails from behind the scenes at Mancow's show admitting the waterboarding was a hoax. Specifically, one email came from Mancow's publicist, Linda Schafran, whose other clients include the likes of Jerry Springer. While looking for someone to play the role of Mancow’s waterboarding interrogator, Linda was asked in an email if Mancow would "really be tortured?" In reply, Linda emailed the following answer revealing the waterboarding would be faked:
"It is going to have to look "real" but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning. It will be a hoax but have to look real. Would be great if they could dress in fatigues and bring whatever is needed. We will supply the water"
Game, set, match. Knowing now that this was a phony stunt to make it look like waterboarding, a review of the video shows how it was faked.
In actual waterboarding, the terrorist's head is on a decline so gravity can pull water up his nose. Not only was Mancow's head not on a decline, you can hear him tell the "interrogator" to hold his nose closed with his fingers - not once but twice - even grabbing the interrogators hand at one point to direct him to pinch his nose in the right place (who was running this event? The “interrogator” later admitted to Gawker he never did this before).
There is one camera on Mancow's left, but another video shows it from Mancow's right. In the camera on his right you get a clear shot that Mancow CLOSED HIS LIPS when the water came down. The "interrogator" then pours the water on his neck and chest, as Mancow spits what little water entered his mouth. When he returns to Mancow's mouth, Mancow hops up from the procedure. All in 6 seconds. Mancow then blows his nose, obviously a theatrical effect since he had made sure the interrogator held his nose tight.
The best evidence that Mancow barely got a drop was the sound of his voice upon popping up. Christopher Hitchens, whose waterboarding was at least real, described how it causes your throat to involuntarily tighten. In that video you can see Christopher flushed, laboring for breath and speech after his waterboarding. Mancow began a monologue when he got up. He was not red faced like Hitchens nor was his voice different. I doubt he took in any water at all. This was, by the admission of Mancow's staff after all, a hoax.
So Gawker nailed Mancow on his hoax, but Olbermann's problem was he already invested in it as real. Keith had 2 choices: Take the high road and admit he'd been had, or continue the hoax at considerable expense to his integrity. He chose the latter.
Mancow could have saved face by admitting the hoax and having Ashton Kutcher join him in telling Olbermann, “You’ve been punked!” but he too took the low road.
On Friday, May 29, Olbermann had Mancow on his show for damage control. The best they could come up with was "please don't believe the email." According to them, the email only says it’s a hoax “one time” (as if one time isn't enough). To the contrary, it says so 5 times. Let me highlight those 5 times in the email:
"It is going to have to look "real" but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning. It will be a hoax but have to look real."
If the waterboarding was going to be real, the answer to the question whether it was going to be real would have been a simple "yes," not the quadruple no Schafran put in her email.
Then Mancow and Olbermann went below gutter level to try to deflect attention from their ruse. Mancow compared his 6-second face wash to the tragic, accidental hanging death of Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter last week. Disgusting. Normally Olbermann would spend a week of outrage on that atrocity, giving Mancow a worst person award for life. Blinded by self-interest, Olbermann didn't even wince. Stay classy, MSNBC.
For another deflection of the spotlight that cooks him, Olbermann keeps pointing out that Sean Hannity has never been waterboarded (which is somehow a license for Olbermann to conduct a Nixonian cover up?). Let's look at the reason why it would be useless for Hannity to be waterboarded; as useless as it was for Hitchens to be and for Mancow to pretend to be.
Will Hannity choke on the water and experience anxiety when waterboarded? Of course - we don't do it to terrorists to make their stay pleasant. Hannity will turn red, cough and have to catch his breath like Hitchens did. A minute later he will be fine though, which is why this isn't torture. For torture - see John McCain's arm, which will never heal.
More to the point though, Hannity will not be asked by his "interrogator" to give up a wanted secret, just as Hitchens and Mancow were not asked. That's the point of waterboarding - to scare someone into giving information. Simulations designed to prove waterboarding is uncomfortable and scary only proves what we already know.
Were I to be experimentally waterboarded, I'd insist on first having a secret the "interrogator" wanted badly and then see if he can get me to say it by waterboarding.
There are two reasons why liberals who claim waterboarding is torture will never agree to such a test. If I didn't spill the secret after waterboarding, that would weigh against their argument that it is a severe technique that is torture. If I DID spill the secret, they would have to admit it works, which they are desperate not to do. That is exactly why President Obama refuses to agree to Dick Cheney’s request to release memos that reveal the secrets given to us by the 3 terrorist we waterboarded. The President doesn't want to admit waterboarding worked while only scaring, not torturing, the terrorists.
The debate over waterboarding being torture or not rests not with simulations but with a review of the Geneva and UN Conventions (a debate I invite). All we've really confirmed with experiments and simulations is that Hitchens is too out of shape to hold his breath a few seconds and “the Sportscaster” and “Howard Stern-lite” have no credibility, which we already knew.
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