Phil Rosenthal | ChicagoTribune.com

Erich “Mancow” Muller, responding to a report he faked being waterboarded on Chicago’s WLS-AM 890 a week earlier, said Friday that both his experience and subsequent newfound belief that the controversial interrogation technique is torture were “absolutely real.”

Muller went on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” for the second time this week on Friday night to discuss the latest developments (above), and Gawker.com then returned the volley.

Muller readily acknowledged in an interview with the Chicago Tribune earlier that the waterboarding stunt was not and never meant to be an exact re-creation of how the technique is administered to detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

He also said that Chicago police, station management and others were misled ahead of time and told “we weren’t really going to do” the waterboarding “until we did”; otherwise, he said, it would not have been permitted.

WLS-AM boss Michael Fowler said Muller simply told him not to worry, and he has no doubt the experience was real for Muller, who remained shaken hours afterward.

“I was trying to get inside the story and get as close as we could in a stupid radio studio,” Muller said. “We got a Marine and he said he’d read up on it, and he could do it.”

Muller was as surprised as anyone when he buckled after only six seconds and reversed his position on whether it was torture, but he doesn’t necessarily means it shouldn’t be used with terrorists.

“The right wingers are upset because I said it was torture and they somehow want to discredit me. The left is upset because I’m saying I’m not sure I even care. I didn’t make any friends doing this. But the idea that it’s fake really [ticks] me off.”

Muller, once a daily presence on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” morning program and still an occasional FNC guest, said he never intended the stunt as a litmus test on the practice of waterboarding. He merely wanted to get a sense of the experience.

Although listeners were invited to choose whether he or co-host Pat Cassidy were to be waterboarded, he said that he always expected to be the one who underwent the procedure, which he did not expect to be a big deal.

The waterboarding he experienced produced a drowning sensation, he said, even if it wasn’t an exact re-creation. But after MSNBC’s Olbermann last Friday used Muller’s reversal to declare an end to the waterboarding debate.

“I never said this was Guantanamo Bay,” Muller said. “I’m not in chains. I’m not a radical Muslim terrorist. I went into this as a joke. But from my limited experience with it, I think it’s torture and that [ticks] people off. I’ve got [Fox News Channel and syndicated radio host Sean] Hannity calling me and saying it’s not torture. Sorry, it’s … torture. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Gawker.com uncovered e-mails from Muller’s publicist, seeking someone to perform the waterboarding, referring to the stunt as a “hoax” and saying it would “have to look ‘real’ but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning.”

The Web site quoted Klay South, the Marine who wound up administering the waterboarding and founder of the non-profit Veterans of Valor organizations to assist wounded vets, as saying he knew nothing about the technique, and he had no training or experience with waterboarding.

“I went to waterboarding.org and looked it up,” South told Gawker. “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.”

Gawker reported that an MSNBC spokeswoman acknowledged that Olbermann producers were told before Muller’s appearance earlier this week that the radio host’s publicist had referred to the stunt as a “hoax,” but the publicist had reassured them it was just a poor choice of words. No mention of this was made in the interview, but Olbermann said Friday his staff had investigated the allegations and rejected them.

“I had a Marine that did it, and he said he read up on how to do it,” Muller said to the Tribune. “Obviously it was a radio thing. We were not in prison or anything. I wasn’t in chains. … My back was up. My legs were up. My head was back. I was at an angle. Was it the exact angle they had at Guantanamo Bay? I don’t know. I did it. It was awful. We did it as best we could in a stupid radio studio.”

Ironically, in his wilder days, Muller was not above embellishment on his show. “In the past, with all the stupidity, I never understood why people took it seriously. But this actually was serious,” he said. “It’s the ‘Cow that cried ‘waterboarding.’”

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Muller also issued a statement:
BORED BLOGGERS ARE ALL WET
By Mancow Muller

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.