"Absolutely torture": Waterboarding a right-wing radio host

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Maybe it's easy to say it isn't torture when you haven't actually been subjected to it yourself. That's certainly the case with most of the torture enthusiasts of the right.

Well, one conservative -- Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller -- decided to try it out, to make a point in support of those who claim it isn't torture. This morning, Mancow was waterboarded on air. And it wasn't really what he had expected:

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

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.'"

If you remember, Christopher Hitchens -- that somewhat bellicose non-conservative who is decidedly not a torture enthusiast -- voluntarily subjected himself to waterboarding last year and reached the same immediate conclusion: "Believe me, it's torture."

Like Yglesias, I'm not sure why Mancow didn't just take Hitchens's word for it -- Hitchens's article is chilling -- but, to his credit (I suppose), at least he was willing to go through it himself. And, yes, perhaps more right-wing torture enthusiasts need to be subjected to it, too.

Then, and perhaps only then, would they come to see it for what it really is.