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He He He may not be the most authentic journalist, but libertarian radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller has recently injected himself into the debate on torture in support of coercive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding.  This morning he decided to take the plunge himself. “I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture.” he said.  “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face….I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off’.”‘

But after six seconds, Mancow terminated the demonstration and had a change in heart. Visibly traumatized, he stammered, “I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.” Check out the video below as well as videos of three other journalists who have submitted to waterboarding.

Playboy Journalist Mike Guy was waterboarded in late April.  He wagered that he could last fifteen seconds, and only lasted six.

Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens was not only waterboarded for an August 2008 article, but even had himself abducted by ex-military interrogators to recreate the process.  He lasted under ten seconds and claimed that in the aftermath he suffered from paranoia and claustrophobia anytime he was out of breath.

The only journalist who appears to have fared well during waterboarding was FOX News correspondent Steve Harrigan.  However, after watching the reactions of the other journalists, it’s hard to imagine his interrogators were using the same methods.

Regardless of your politics, you have to respect any journalist who submits to waterboarding.  It does seem that the opinions of most these guys, excluding the FOX anchor, are pretty consistent after they experience the procedure:  it’s torture, no bones about it.

The crazy thing is that all of these journalists are in controlled situations in which they can stop the procedure at any time, which means it must be 100 times more intense for those who have no control.  Of course, not every journalist supporting waterboarding has stepped up to the plate.

FOX News anchor Sean Hannity–a proponent of waterboarding– said in late April that he would submit to the tactic in some sort of “charity” event. MSNBC anchor Keith Olberman has taken him to task, offering to donate $1,000 to a military charity for every second Hannity is waterboarded.  Post his boast and Olberman’s challenge, Hannity has kept mum on the issue.  My assumption is a Hannity waterboarding video would put the rest of these to shame. UPDATE:  Olberman has withdrawn the offer to Hannity and instead paid $10,000 to a charity of Mancow’s choice.

Related Post: Muzzling Bush’s Legal Mastermind

I thought that the weather and the delicious meal would offset the gory details of the interrogation memos, and to some extent they did, but there is a chilling eeriness in actually reading the “dispassionate prose”–as the NYT so aptly phrased it–of the legal masterminds who set the gears of the Bush interrogation programs in motion.

Bush's Torture Dream Team

Though it was Jay S. Bybee who oversaw the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel when many of the memos authorizing brutal interrogations were approved, much of the handiwork was done by John Yoo.

Yoo–A South Korean immigrant and Yale Law graduate–set the standard for torture by defining it as action that “must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.”

Using this broad definition, he was able to authorize a slew of deplorable tactics, but the most stunning revelation wasn’t the sort of brutal torture methods the U.S. was using–as this was already well known–but the calculated, rational legal minds who so cavalierly validated it.

Yoo was a dream legal counsel for a president attempting to enhance his power, as he was totally divested from the human cost of his work. During  a 2005 debate, Yoo was asked by Notre Dame legal scholar Doug Cassel, “If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?”

His  answer: “No treaty,” and, depending on the president’s belief at the time, no law either.

For this reason, it should come as no surprise that when Yoo and his cohorts were asked to supply the legal backing to exploit detainee Abu Zubaydah’s fear of insects by telling him they were putting stinging insects in his box and actually placing harmless bugs, they were game.

The bugs were never used, but the authorization was given.  It’s a strange thing to read, regardless of the sunshine.  Props to Obama for releasing the memos, even though they hampered my lunch.  Props to John Yoo for his hard work and creativity; too bad he used it in such a reprehensible way.