Here's what he said:

...our Kenyan-Muslim president who's destroying this country, you know, seriously, you can polish a turd, you can polish a turd, it's still a turd...

The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn has the audio. Nice work, Keith.

Last month we reported that Muller's publicist, Linda Shafran, sent an e-mail to a friend before Muller's waterboarding stunt last month clearly stating that the affair would be a "hoax" and would "only look real" with Mancow "acting like he is drowning." We also got in touch with the guy who "waterboarded" Mancow, who said he literally had no idea what he was doing.

And then Keith Olbermann got very angry at us and had Muller on Countdown for a second time to rebut out reporting where he said, before he started talking about the Book of Revelations, that he had to pretend that his fake waterboarding would be a hoax because the "the Chicago cops came and said, 'You can't waterboard.'"

That's not true.

See, he only pretended that it would be fake, the story goes, but was planning on actually getting waterboarded all along. Since Shafran had been told—falsely—that the whole thing would be a hoax, it would make sense that she wrote that it would be a hoax.

The notion that the Chicago Police Department actually contacted Muller to tell him that he couldn't voluntarily undergo a waterboarding is preposterous, but Mancow's former producer Midge Ripoli (who went on the air by the rather unfortunate name "DJ Luv Cheez" and was fired by Muller after spending 17 years on the show) says he knows what Muller was talking about: Muller had originally asked a close friend of his who is on the Chicago SWAT team to conduct the waterboarding, but he backed out. Which, Ripoli says, Muller translated into "the Chicago cops came and said, 'You can't waterboard."

In one of the e-mails obtained and published by Gawker, Shafran wrote, "The swat guy he had to do the waterboarding now can't do it."

"When he said he was going to have a SWAT guy do it, but he backed out the last minute," Ripoli told Gawker, "I knew right away what this was. He has a really good friend on the Chicago SWAT team. I'm sure that when he thought about this, he said, 'I don't want to be involved.'" That withdrawal from the project by his SWAT-team friend, Ripoli says, is probably what Muller meant by "the cops told me I can't do it."

"We called it the 'Mancow factor,'" Ripoli says of his former boss' penchant for spinning innocuous details into elaborate stories. "He used to call me, back in the '90s, and say there were black helicopters flying outside his house—he said he actually saw them. For him to try to be a serious pundit now is crazy."

We'll never know for sure what Muller meant, because when we called to ask him, he said "goodbye" and hung up. And the Chicago Police Department, despite repeated requests, said they didn't have enough information to conduct an inquiry into whether or not a representative of the department spoke to Muller prior to the "waterboarding."

Still, we called Lock E. Bowman, the legal director of the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University—which deals in police misconduct cases in Illinois, including torture cases—to ask him whether any Illinois or Chicago laws would prohibit a voluntary waterboarding. He said that Illinois' laws on assault and bodily harm all depend on the victim not granting his or her consent.

"I think that's not correct," he said. "If he consents—and you'd have to set up a clear process where he agrees to it and signs off—then there's no crime. There might be a civil issue if he was accidentally injured in the course of this, but as far as assault, or battery, or any criminal liability is concerned, his consent would be a complete defense."

So either an actual Chicago police officer contacted Muller out of the blue to tell him—falsely—that he couldn't undergo a voluntary waterboarding, thereby causing Muller to say—falsely—that it would only be for pretend, thereby causing his publicist to tell a friend—falsely—that it would be a "hoax," thereby causing us to report—falsely—that it was a hoax. Or Muller's friend who was a cop backed out of the fake waterboarding and, after he was caught in his hoax, Muller spun this fact into an excuse for his publicist's e-mail. We'll take No. 2.

Muller is a shock jock who made his name by pulling stunts like shutting down traffic on San Francisco's Bay Bridge with his station's news van and having his sidekick get a haircut on the asphalt, making prank calls to Chinese restaurants and asking whether they make their Egg Foo Yung with dog or cat meat, saying "nigger" on the air, and making repeated calls to the hair salon next to his studio and insinuating that the male owner is a gay.

Seven days ago, after a week of on air hype, Muller—who has always denied that waterboarding was torture—purported to undergo the procedure on the air, after which he dramatically announced that he had changed his mind about it. This would have probably gone largely unnoticed except for the fact that Keith Olbermann designated him as the leading critic of torture.

So irresistable was the idea of a nominal conservative coming over to Olbermann's side of the torture debate (the right side, we might add) that even after we reported that Muller's stunt was at best a half-assed spectacle that didn't come close to the actual conditions that waterboard victims experience and at worst a deliberate con job designed to get publicity, Olbermann double-downed and blamed us for ruining his fun. Based on the evidence we've gathered, and Olbermann and Muller's confusing and contradictory responses, we're increasingly convinced that Muller's waterboarding escapade was a purposeful fabrication—that he set out to engineer a publicity event based on the reversal of his position. But even if you take the most charitable view of the evidence from Muller's perspective, all that emerges is a fake waterboarding that frightened a callow radio host.

Olbermann brought Muller—with his wife and daughter wandering around aimlessly and confusingly behind him in the studio—back to his show tonight to rebut our stories. He said that "the only actual evidence" that Muller's supposed waterboarding was not, in fact, a waterboarding was "the use of the word 'hoax' in an e-mail." Well, we'd say that's something, considering the e-mail in question was from Muller's publicist, Linda Shafran, who wrote outright that the event was indeed a hoax. Muller explained it away, as he did earlier today, by claiming that he would not have been permitted to do the stunt by his bosses if he let people know that he was actually planning on going through with it. He wasn't clear, but the implication was that Shafran wasn't in the loop—she thought it would be a bullshit stunt: "I didn't think it was a big deal, she didn't think it was a big deal. We were going to prove that it was nothing."

Shafran wrote the e-mail on the afternoon before the stunt, as part of a frantic attempt to find someone to conduct the waterboarding. Here's what she wrote:

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.

No one disputes that the e-mail is genuine. Note that it contains other words than "hoax"—words like "look real" and "simulated." And—most importantly—"with Mancow acting like he is drowning."

Here's what Olbermann's paranoid rebuttals fail to explain: If Muller was planning on proving that waterboarding was no big deal, and if Shafran thought Muller was planning on proving that waterboarding was no big deal, and if Shafran also thought—wrongly—that it was going to be a hoax: Why would she write that Muller would be "acting like he is drowning"? Wouldn't he act like he wasn't drowning? Like waterboarding isn't a "big deal"? According to Muller's story, when Shafran wrote that e-mail, she was under the mistaken impression that Muller was going to fake a waterboarding to prove that it's no big deal. It makes no sense. Nor does Muller's line about trying to keep the bosses out of the loop: "You have to understand something," he said. "The Chicago cops came and said, 'You can't waterboard.'" Really? The Chicago Police Department came to you, Muller, and told you not to waterboard? We're going to call them and ask them on Monday!

Even if Muller is telling the truth about Shafran being out of the loop, her e-mail makes fairly clear that Muller knew how his waterboarding was going to end before it started.

Olbermann says it's absurd that Muller would deliberately fake a waterboarding so that he could publicly reverse his position. What's the motive? Well, how many times has he been on Countdown since he did it? How much publicity has he reaped from this episode? What's more newsworthy: A waterboarding supporter undergoes the procedure and confirms his beliefs, or a waterboarding advocate undergoes the procedure and changes his tune?

Gawker is, according to Olbermann, a part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to discredit his hero Muller: "It did occur to you," he asked us, "that the person who sent you the e-mails probably wanted to see Mancow's conversion discredited because the far right can't have somebody it considered its own dramatically saying he was wrong, and so somebody played your web site like a three dollar banjo for political purposes?"

Well, the e-mails are undisputed and they speak for themselves, so the motive of the leaker doesn't really have an impact in this instance. But Keith: The person who leaked them to us also leaked them to you—before you interviewed Muller. If they wanted to discredit him, why would they try to warn you off interviewing him? He can't be discredited until someone gives credit to what he's done in the first place—and you are the the most prominent person that he's convinced into giving him airtime. Someone who was interested in making Muller look like a clown would have wanted him to go on your show before leaking the e-mails. This leaker tried to stop him.

Olbermann acknowledged that his staff had received the e-mails, and did "due diligence and then some" in verifying Muller's story, which in this case consisted of talking to Muller, talking to Shafran, and leaving telephone messages for Klay South, the marine who did the waterboarding. Had Olbermann or his staff actually talked to South, as we did, they would have learned that he "didn't know what [he] was doing" and that he "just did what [he] was told—poured water on [Mancow's] face." Still, Olbermann says that his attempts to verify the story by talking to the guy who is telling it and believing the woman who said it was a hoax when she changed her story and said it wasn't a hoax were better than what Gawker did. "If our perspective here had been political or sloppy," he said, "we wouldn't have checked anything—you know, the way the web site did it."

That's a lie. Our night editor verified Shafran's e-mail with her directly and included her response in the story. We called Muller to get his side of the story and published it. We called South to get his story, and published it. We e-mailed Olbermann for his comment, and we called his MSNBC publicist for hers. Olbermann is living in a fantasy world where malicious bloggers spread lies about him without doing any legwork. We did more reporting on Muller's alleged waterboarding than he or his staff did.

What's more, Olbermann says that the explanation Shafran gave to his staff for her use of the words "hoax," "simulated," and "acting" in the e-mail was this that "it was just a bad choice of words in the heat of trying to find somebody, at the last minute, to participate." That was what she told them on the evening of the interview with Muller. But tonight, on Olbermann's show, Muller said that Shafran wrote that because that's what she thought it was going to be—a hoax. Which is it, Keith? Did Shafran think it was a hoax or did she just make a "bad choice of words"? If Muller's story is true, why would Shafran tell your producers that she just chose the wrong words?

In the end, there are two incontrovertible data points here: That Muller's publicist called the thing a hoax and said Muller intended to pretend he was drowning, and that the guy doing the waterboarding was by his own admission as unqualified to perform the procedure as one could possibly be. Muller's attempts to explain away the first one consist of little more than dubious rhetorical loop-de-loops from a professional provocateur and publicity-hound who has provided, over the years, innumerable reasons why he doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. And nobody disputes the second. Even if Muller didn't deliberately orchestrate this whole stunt from the beginning, it's clear that whatever happened to him doesn't qualify as waterboarding in any recognizable sense of the word. His waterboarder had no training and says he's "the last person" they should have asked to do it. He wasn't subjected to anything close to the conditions that actual waterboarding victims suffer, or, for that matter, that journalists like Christopher Hitchens who undertook the procedure suffered. He decided to get waterboarded, so he asked his publicist to find someone who knew nothing about it to look it up on the internet and do it to him. We say it all adds up to a fake—either by orchestration or half-assed laziness. The only reason that Olbermann—or anyone else for that matter—could come to a different conclusion is ideological fervor. This, according to Olbermann, is "changing the debate" on torture.

After repeatedly claiming—falsely—that Gawker was alleging some kind of conspiracy when all we are alleging is that a notorious radio faker faked another thing, Olbermann and Muller got into some really heavy stuff, speculating that Gawker is doing Dick Cheney's dirty work. "Telling the truth, even accidentally even in a small way, can be very dangerous stuff," Olbermann said.

"There's dark forces behind this," Muller said. "I really believe this."

Jesus.

Also, Muller compared himself to Mike Tyson's dead daughter and said this was all predicted in Revelations. Seriously. He signed off by admitting that he "plays pranks all the time—that's the irony here."

This is the star that Olbermann decided to hitch his wagon to tonight. Bad move.

P.S. For the record: We know that waterboarding is torture, and that torture is illegal, immoral, and unacceptable. We just don't want lying buffoons making the case on our behalf.

Muller came to the right conclusion about waterboarding. He just did it in the wrongest way possible. Which is fine for a Chicago radio host with an audience of prank-calling 12-year-olds. But Keith Olbermann and others are holding up this charlatan's stunt as a game-changer in a very important debate. What's the point of judging the merits of what we have been doing to terrorist detainees by doing it to ourselves if we're not actually doing to ourselves what we are in fact doing to terrorist detainees? In the end it just muddles the debate, and more importantly, is fake.

Muller was free to do what others have, and actually undertake to learn about what we are doing and how we are doing it, and try it out to see how it feels. Instead he lazily and loudly called a press conference, had someone pour water on his face, called it torture, and got on Countdown. (And, TV Newser says, will be going back on tonight.) And now that the charade has been called out for what it was, he's flailing about with claims that whatever was done to him was close enough to waterboarding and, really, if it wasn't he still changed his mind that it's torture, which he's still in favor of in certain situations. Got all that?

Klay South, the founder of Veterans of Valor who poured the pitcher over Muller's mouth, was as clear as he could be when he went on Muller's show today, repeating what he told us: he knows nothing about waterboarding. "I have to let people know right off the bat, I've had no formal training, I've never been waterboarded myself. The only thing I know is what I've seen off YouTube and the internet."

South, whose nonprofit has been promised a $10,000 donation from Olbermann (which he deserves just for being dragged into this whole affair) and is getting loads of publicity out of this whole spectacle (also a good thing), went on to say that "it was as real as it gets." Then he ended his segment with this ringing exchange:

Muller: So soldier [Ed.—South is a marine], so was it real or fake?

South: It was as real as I could re-enact, as best as I could.

Muller also issued an incoherent press release, penned by him and reproduced below, introducing a new argument for his case that the waterboarding that his publicist called a "hoax" and insisted wouldn't be "real" and which was conducted by someone who knew "nothing" about waterboarding was not at all fake in any way: "We kept telling management, the insurance companies, and the local Chicago cops we weren't really going to do it - until we did. Otherwise, they weren't gonna let us do it!" So the talk of hoaxes and faking it was just a ruse to fool management into letting them really do it.

He also says, "We never claimed it was an exact recreation," a point on which we will, against all better judgment, take him at his word. Here's the release. You can read a copy-edited version here, but we think you'll prefer Muller's eloquent consideration of "wanterboarding":

I am not a magician. Many news cameras were there!

Obviously, it was on the radio and I wasn't in prison. I'm also not a radicalized Muslim terrorist. But it was not a hoax! I repeat: NOT A HOAX.

We kept telling management, the insurance companies, and the local Chicago cops we weren't really going to do it - until we did. Otherwise, they weren't gonna let us do it! We got a U.S. Marine that told us he had studied how to do it and he volunteered to waterboard me in return for a mention of his charity.

I was on a decline and I was waterboarded. Was I in chains? No. Does that make it less real? I am failing to get the point attempted by my detractors. We never claimed it was an exact recreation.

The CIA technique is exactly what we did:

1. Keep the chest elevated above the head and neck to keep the lungs "above the waterline."

2. Incline the head, both to keep the throat open and to present the nostrils for easier filling.

3. Force the mouth open so that water can be poured into both the nose and mouth.

Sorry, I thought for years it wasn't torture and now I do. The video is there for all to see.

The left has taken my message and distorted it as well. Would I wanterboard to save my daughters (or any American children)? Yes!

The three terrorists that were waterboarded at Guantanamo were done so by military professionals. And it was done to save lives with America's best interests at heart. Mine was a silly radio time filler in comparison. Its apples & hand grenades!

It would be insane to equate what I did with anything that happens in prison. I am simply a free man in a radio studio that always tries to get inside the big issues. This is an ugly issue with no easy answers. But I now see it's easier for some to dismiss me than to do any real soul searching on this very heady issue.

"We went into this thinking it was going to be a joke," Muller said very quickly when we called him. "But it was not a joke—it was horrible. 'Hoax' is probably not the right word, but we did think it was going to be a joke."

According to e-mails from Muller's publicist obtained by Cajun Boy, on the day before the heavily promoted stunt was supposed to happen, Muller was frantically looking for anybody to perform the waterboarding:

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.

"It was a marine who did it," Muller said. "I don't know his training. Is he a professional interrogator? I don't think so. But he knew what to do. If I wanted to fake it, it would have lasted for six minutes—I lasted six seconds. I'm on the air, bud, I'm on the air." Then he hung up.

So we called Klay South, the marine Mancow found at the last minute to perform the waterboarding. He says he had no idea what he was doing! To wit:

I know nothing about waterboarding. I had never done it before, I have no formal training in it, and I've never had it done to me. The only thing I knew was what I saw on the internet. I went to waterboarding.org and looked it up. I just did what I was told—poured the water on his face and that was it. I'm probably the last person they should have had do it. I didn't know what I was doing.

That settles it for us! South is the founder of Veterans of Valor, a nonprofit that helps out wounded vets, and he said he agreed to the gig just to gain a donation and publicity for the organization, a noble enough reason.

According to South's main resource, waterboarding.org, waterboarders should "restrain the interrogation subject on a board" and "incline the board about 15-20 degrees so that the feet are above the head." South says Muller's feet were bound, but his arms were not. And although his feet were elevated, he was laying on a flat surface.

We asked South if it seemed like Muller was faking it: "I don't know. I couldn't tell you if he was in distress or not."

UPDATE: Mancow called us back to say that even though his waterboarder didn't know what he was doing, and his publicist called the whole thing a "hoax," it wasn't supposed to be a REALLY real waterboarding to begin with. Just the radio stunt kind! "Of course I wasn't a radical terrorist," he said. "Of course it was simulated. To compare what I went through to what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed went through—of course it was not the same. I'm sure it was worse for them."

Undoubtedly it was. But isn't the whole point of these exercises to let people know exactly what we talk about when we talk about waterboarding? We've learned that Mancow can't take six seconds of having water poured on his face—we guess he doesn't take showers?—but we've learned absolutely nothing about the mechanics or ethics of what goes on at CIA black sites. If anything, a bullshit stunt like this one gives ammunition to torture proponents, who can poke holes in Muller's grand conversion by pointing out that it's a bullshit stunt. Keith Olbermann and other righteous anti-torture advocates are holding up Muller's experience as evidence—someone who was inclined to support waterboarding and deny that it's torture has actually experienced it, which Sean Hannity and his ilk lack the courage to do, and the facts have changed his mind. Only he hasn't actually experienced it, or anything remotely approaching what actual torture victims experienced. None of it is real.

On last night's show, Olbermann brought up Muller during an interview with Jesse Ventura:

Mancow went into this knowing that—being a swimmer as a kid and in fact having been drowned and resuscitated—he knew what this was really like and he knew this couldn't possibly be that. He lasted six seconds and he said, not only is it torture, not only is it drowning—it's death! It's being undersold.

Compare that to South, the waterboarder, who couldn't even answer whether Muller was actually in any kind of distress. We have know idea if Muller was deliberately faking the whole episode for publicity, or if he ginned up a fake waterboarding as a gag and then was surprised to find himself actually terrified by it. But either way, Olbermann is a disingenuous ideologue who hurts his own cause—and ours—when he takes this fakery at face value and promotes it as evidence of his own rectitude on the torture debate.

Astonishingly, MSNBC is standing by its flackery for Muller's hoax. An MSNBC spokeswoman acknowledged that Olbermann's producers had been made aware prior to airing the Muller interview that his publicist had described it as a hoax, saying, "We asked the publicist and were assured by her that she just used a poor choice of words." But when asked if MSNBC still believes that publicist, in light of the fact that Muller's waterboarder had no idea what he was doing, she declined to comment.

She also confirmed that the network made no effort to reach South prior to airing the interview [UPDATE: Olbermann said on his show Friday night that his producers "left messages" for him but didn't talk to him]. Mancow Muller is a shock jock. He calls himself Mancow! He's been making ludicrous, insane comments for a living and pranking people for years. He's claimed that Obama is a Muslim and that Hillary Clinton was sitting on a secret tape of Michelle Obama making a racist tirade. Nothing he says should be taken at face value. For Olbermann to do so sort of undercuts the self-righteous, sanctimonious, posturing that has made him an icon in his own mind and motivates him to hurl insults at doo-doo-covered blogs.

[Update: The marine who "waterboarded" Mancow told us this morning that he had "no idea what he was doing" and that everything he knows about waterboarding, he read on the internet. Mancow told us that "hoax isn't the right word," but that the whole thing was supposed to be "simulated."]

The information provided to Gawker by our tipster came in a series of emails and is somewhat layered, so we'll try to lay it all out as unconfusingly as possible. Where the story begins is last Thursday afternoon, the day before Mancow was scheduled to be waterboarded, when the person slated to do the waterboarding suddenly backed out, sending Mancow's publicity team into a mild frenzy to find someone to replace him. A chain of emails followed, emails that were subsequently forwarded to Gawker by our tipster.

There are three main players in the following sequence of events:

-The first is a Chicago-based publicist named Linda Shafran whose clients include the Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos shows, in addition to Erich "Mancow" Muller. In describing Shafran our tipster added:

"Linda Shafran is Springer's current publicist until the show starts shooting in CT. Since Springer is her primary source of income, she's now trying to help promote Mancow nationally as a shock jock alternative to Howard Stern."

-The second person involved in this is a man named David Kupcinet. He runs a Chicago-based foundation for veterans called Kup's Purple Heart Foundation. He is the grandson of Irv Kupcinet, a somewhat legendary Chicago gossip columnist who wrote a column for the Chicago Sun Times for over 60 years. At the behest of a friend, Linda Shafran contacted Kupcinet on Thursday hoping that his relationships with Chicago-area veterans and military personnel could help her find a replacement waterboarder.

-The third person involved here, to a much lesser degree, is another Chicago-based publicist named Kathy Posner. According to our tipster, Posner is Jerry Springer's former flack and a friend of both Linda Shafran and Erich "Mancow" Muller. According to one of the emails we were forwarded, it was Posner who suggested that Shafran contact David Kupcinet to find a replacement waterboarder.

Now, with all of that background established, here are some of the emails that followed between Shafran and Kupcinet, the first being the initial contact between the two on the matter:

From: [redacted]
Date: Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:15 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: URGENT

Don't shoot the messenger

Mancow has been promoting all week that he is getting waterboarded tomorrow between 8-9am on-air. We have camera crew shooting it for WGN

The swat guy he had to do the waterboarding now can't do it. Do you know any military guy that might come down to WLS radio tomorrow (190 N. State Street) to waterboard Mancow????

Kathy said you know lots of military guys that might do it...or a policeman or fireman or EMT.

HELP

Linda Shafran
Jerry Springer Show
454 N. Columbus Dr.
Chicago, IL 60611
PH: [redacted]
cell: [redacted]
Email: [redacted]

Kupcinet, or "Kuppy," responded a few minutes later:

From: [redacted]
Date: Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:28 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: Re: URGENT

What exactly do you mean? You mean really tortured? What exactly would it consist of and do they need to bring gear or does Cow have what he needs or what?

Get back to me quick an ill find u a guy.

Kuppy

(P.S. Love you)

Sent from my iPhone

Now, here's the key email in the exchange, with Shafran saying in no uncertain terms that the whole thing is being staged as a hoax:

From: [redacted]
Date: Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:38 PM
To: [redacted]
Cc: [redacted]
Subject: Re: URGENT

You are a ROCK STAR!!!

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

xxxx

Linda Shafran
Jerry Springer Show
454 N. Columbus Dr.
Chicago, IL 60611
PH: [redacted]
cell: [redacted]
Email: [redacted]

After getting this email from Shafran, David Kupcinet suggested she contact Marine Sgt. Clay South, the person who eventually carried out Mancow's waterboarding. We include this next email only because we find the compensation offer extended to South from Mancow via Shafran to be somewhat amusing:

From: [redacted]
Date: Thu, May 21, 2009 at 2:02 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: MANCOW WAS ALL OVER IT

I tried to call you but got voicemail. I talked to Mancow and he said "Are you kidding - of course he can mention the charity and talk about his experiences over there"

I am going to call Klay now. Mancow will pay gas and parking.

Linda Shafran
Jerry Springer Show
454 N. Columbus Dr.
Chicago, IL 60611
PH: [redacted]
FX: [redacted]
Email: [redacted]

We contacted Linda Shafran last night for a statement about this and she emailed us back with an emphatic denial that anything was faked:

It was NOT a hoax. Early on when we were looking for someone to waterboard, an email was sent out looking for someone to do it and I mistakenly said it would be staged. That was my mistake and a misunderstanding.

But that was early and NOT TRUE AT ALL. It was not staged. NOT AT ALL. When it happened several days later, it was real, honest, actual, not staged.

Any info you have was my mistake. THE WATERBOARDING OF MANCOW WAS REAL!!!!!!

The glaring discrepancy in Shafran's statement to us is that her emails to Kupcinet are dated Thursday, May 21st, the day prior to Mancow's waterboarding, while she now claims that these emails were sent out "early on" and that the waterboarding took place "several days later." Additionally, she even mentions that Mancow "is getting waterboarded tomorrow" in her first note to Kupcinet.

Regarding the emails between Safran and Kupcinet, our tipster also informed us that they were shared with Keith Olbermann's producers prior to Mancow's appearance on his show. We were told that they were beyond livid when they found out about them and expressed their extreme displeasure for the whole situation with Linda Shafran over the phone, but went ahead with the planned segment anyway, making no mention of the fact that they'd received advance word that the whole thing may have been staged. However, we were unable to confirm this with anyone at MSNBC.

Now, we're obviously no experts on the art of waterboarding, but we've done a bit of research on it and also went back and watched the video of Christopher Hitchens' waterboarding in 2008 to compare and contrast his waterboarding against Mancow's, and we couldn't help but notice some rather striking differences.

In the Hitchens video, everything is carried out pretty much according to universal waterboarding protocol as we've come to understand it. His limbs and torso are tightly bound by restraints. The platform on which he lays appears to be tilted slightly downward so that his head is positioned below his heart. His head is also completely covered and the water used looks as though it's poured directly into his breathing passages.

In contrast, Mancow isn't bound by restraints at all, he doesn't appear to have his body positioned at a decline, only a portion of his face from the nose up is covered, and the water is being poured on him inappropriately.

In short, when we watched the Mancow video for the first time it struck us in a "well that doesn't look TOO awful" sort of way. For a brief moment it even made us want to call some friends over so we could all waterboard each other and see what all the fuss is about. On the other hand, the Hitchens video is somewhat nightmarish, making us want to never have anything to do with a waterboarding, ever.

We suggest you watch them both and decide for yourself.

We suppose it'd be easy to mock and ridicule "Mancow" here, as he does seem to be an extraordinarily massive tool, not even taking into consideration that he was one of the main guys spreading the "Obama is a closet Muslim" rumors during the election, but there's something truly admirable in a) being sufficiently curious and willing to undergo the procedure personally to truly see what it was like to be on the receiving end of a waterboarding, and b) appearing on the air with arguably the most unabashedly liberal host on television to profess how horribly wrong he'd been previously. So yeah, despite being a tool, "Mancow" deserves a tip of the cap, as does Olbermann for donating $10,000 to a support group for veterans in return for Muller going through with the waterboarding and then appearing on his show to discuss it.

During his appearance Muller said that his good friend Sean Hannity called him recently to hold fast to his belief that waterboarding is "still not torture," despite Muller's argument that it was "absolutely torture" and that he "would have confessed to anything to make it stop." He added, "I was willing to prove, and ready to prove, that this was a joke, and I was wrong. It was horrific. It was instantaneous. And look, I felt the effects for two days."

Again, we admire Muller for being a man and doing what he did, something his buddy Hannity promised to do a few weeks back but has yet to follow through on. And sadly we doubt he ever will.