'Mancow' insists his waterboarding 'absolutely real,' says right and left both upset with him

Chicago Tribune

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."

Before Muller went on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" for the second time this week on Friday night to discuss the latest developments (above), Muller readily acknowledged in an interview with the Chicago Tribune 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.......