Erich "Mancow" Muller got the attention he wanted -- and more. Friday's waterboarding stunt made headlines all weekend as the video of conservative shock jock made the Internet rounds.
And as an added benefit, the WLS-AM radio host also received a hefty donation from an unlikely source, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
After a public pledge to give money to a charity selected by Sean Hannity of FOX News if he would submit to waterboarding, Olbermann rescinded his offer and promised to make a $10,000 donation to Veteran's of Valor, a charity founded by Sgt. Klay South, on Mancow's behalf. South was actually the man who did the waterboarding on Friday.
"Mancow Muller had the guts to put his mouth where his mouth was, and the guts to admit he was dead wrong, " Olbermann said on his show. "As you saw, he not only said it is torture, but that he had nearly drowned as a boy, and it is drowning, and that he would have admitted to anything to make it stop."
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 about the waterboarding. "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.
Mancow, in fact, is not the first person to undergo this experiment. 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.
