Come On Sean, DJ Waterboarded, Where Were You?

On his show today, Sean Hannity said regarding the debate about waterboarding,

"...that was the reality of what they [Bush/Cheney] faced every day...President Obama and Prince Harry and Princess Harry...do they really believe that they are morally superior in their views...that they would allow tens of hundreds of innocent Americans, that they should die rather than waterboard for 40 seconds at a time Khalid Sheikh Mohamed...frankly only a moral fool would say that there are no circumstances that they would envision using enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. You'd have to be a fool."

And how many days has it been Sean, that you have refused to honor your pledge to be waterboarded because, after all, it isn't really torture?

A radio station in Chicago, whose 2 co-hosts also believed that waterboarding wasn't that bad had a contest in which their listeners voted on which of the 2 would be waterboarded. Host Mancow said, "I want to find out if it's torture," saying that he did not believe that it really was. A Marine Sergeant stated that Mancow should be able to tolerate about 14 seconds, the average, although he said he would "wriggle and scream."

With fire department personnel standing by, Mancow threw his toy cow--his signal to stop--immediately and was able to endure the waterboard for a total of 6-7 seconds. Later, Mancow stated that,

"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.' "

A link to the article and video can be found here

Cheney said yesterday that Admiral Dennis Blair, the Intelligence Director, wrote last month that these techniques did in fact produce high-value information. Cheney just forgot to tell the rest of the story. What Blair actually said, was that had he been asked, he would not have approved the use of such techniques, saying:

"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

If you'd like to read the whole article about Admiral Blair's memo to others in the intelligence community, you can find it here. Like much of the Republican spin over the past month, Cheney forgets to point out Blair's main point--that being that use of waterboarding has made us less safe.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.
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