(AP)Yahoo! News wrote:Olbermann pressing on Hannity's waterboard offer
NEW YORK – The debate over torture is getting personal for two of cable TV's prime-time hosts.
After Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity made a seemingly impromptu offer last week to undergo waterboarding as a benefit for charity, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann leapt at it. He offered $1,000 to the families of U.S. troops for every second Hannity withstood the technique.
Olbermann repeated the offer on Monday's show and said in an interview Tuesday that he's heard no response. He said he'll continue to pursue it.
"I don't think he has the courage to even respond to this — let alone do it," Olbermann said.
Fox News Channel representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
The two men are on opposite poles of a debate that has preoccupied the worlds of talk TV and radio. Hannity says waterboarding is a fair and necessary interrogation technique for suspected terrorists; Olbermann calls it torture, says it's ineffective and should not be done by Americans.
Charles Grodin was challenging Hannity on the issue on Fox last week, and asked whether he would consent to be waterboarded.
"Sure," Hannity said. "I'll do it for charity ... I'll do it for the troops' families."
It wasn't exactly clear how serious the conversation was, since Grodin joked, "Are you busy on Sunday?" and Hannity laughed.
"I'll let you do it," Hannity said.
"I wouldn't do it," Grodin said. "I'll hand you a towel when you come out of the shower."
Olbermann's offer was quick. Besides the $1,000 per second, Olbermann said he'd double it if Hannity acknowledges he feared for his life and admits that waterboarding is torture.
"The idea of putting somebody in a position they have volunteered for, for charity, to respond to their own unsupportable claims, is in many ways priceless," Olbermann said.
Olbermann, who hasn't missed any chance to criticize his ideological enemies at Fox, concedes TV competition plays a part in his offer. But he said it was sincere, because he believes Hannity has had a damaging role in the debate.
"If you expose people to reality, even with someone who is denying reality, that can have a powerful and important impact," he said.
Man for $1000.00 per second AND doubling it when he's crying like a b$)ch afterwards? It's certainly a worthy cause. Yeah, it's all fun and games from 1000 miles away, isn't Seanny-boy? Dirty communist.
I'm sorry, but are you expecting a Republitard to put themselves on the line rather than one of the many disposable inner city/rust belt/rural poor masses?
I think it's hilarious Hannity's too much of a pussy to undergo waterboarding when you have 50+ year old Vanity Fair reporters volunteering to take a dunk.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
He won't do it, for starters he only talks about the left to attack them, not engage them in meaningful debate anymore. Second, he is a whiny rich coward.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
I'd do it for $1000 a second for veteran's families, and I've never said it isn't torture, and I believe it would be. I think most people, knowing that a bit of horrific agony could actually end up being worth a lot to someone else, would suck it up and give it a shot. The fact that Hannity won't shows he's afraid of something more than just going through torture--he's afraid of having to admit he was wrong. That's the best part. It's his damn ego. And that's why giving up that ego would be worth twice as much.
If it was me doing it for charity, I'm afraid the vet's families wouldn't be getting too much money. I was at the dentist a while back for a cleaning while I had nasal congestion and could only really breathe through my mouth. I was undergoing ultrasonic scaling with water being liberally sprayed into my mouth. It built it and began to run back down my throat. In about two seconds, I was panicking and grunting for the dentist to stop.
I wonder if he knows that he's wrong and won't do this to save face, or if he's afraid of being proven wrong and won't do this to withhold his confidence that this is harmless.
Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know, the piper's calling you to join him
Covenant wrote:I'd do it for $1000 a second for veteran's families, and I've never said it isn't torture, and I believe it would be. I think most people, knowing that a bit of horrific agony could actually end up being worth a lot to someone else, would suck it up and give it a shot. The fact that Hannity won't shows he's afraid of something more than just going through torture--he's afraid of having to admit he was wrong. That's the best part. It's his damn ego. And that's why giving up that ego would be worth twice as much.
That's the basic argument made by those hoping Hannity won't go through with it. Since it is controlled and safe, he could well put up with it for a few moments to save face. He wouldn't admit it was torture, and he'd come out the victor.
"Can you eat quarks? Can you spread them on your bed when the cold weather comes?" -Bernard Levin
"Sir: Mr. Bernard Levin asks 'Can you eat quarks?' I estimate that he eats 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 quarks a day...Yours faithfully..." -Sir Alan Cottrell
Elohim's loving mercy: "Hey, you, don't turn around. WTF! I said DON'T tur- you know what, you're a pillar of salt now. Bitch." - an anonymous commenter
Qwerty 42 wrote:I wonder if he knows that he's wrong and won't do this to save face, or if he's afraid of being proven wrong and won't do this to withhold his confidence that this is harmless.
He knows he's wrong, and he's a big dripping pussy, so he won't do it.
Edit: Hopefully they have Hitchens on at some point and he can take the piss out of Hannity for not being man enough to go through what Hitchens has.
Covenant wrote:I'd do it for $1000 a second for veteran's families, and I've never said it isn't torture, and I believe it would be. I think most people, knowing that a bit of horrific agony could actually end up being worth a lot to someone else, would suck it up and give it a shot. The fact that Hannity won't shows he's afraid of something more than just going through torture--he's afraid of having to admit he was wrong. That's the best part. It's his damn ego. And that's why giving up that ego would be worth twice as much.
That's the basic argument made by those hoping Hannity won't go through with it. Since it is controlled and safe, he could well put up with it for a few moments to save face. He wouldn't admit it was torture, and he'd come out the victor.
When he is actually enduring it, it won't be easy. It doesn't matter what he says. His reluctance to say yes speaks volumes. And we know what his internal belief is going to be when he finishes.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
Alyeska wrote:
When he is actually enduring it, it won't be easy. It doesn't matter what he says. His reluctance to say yes speaks volumes. And we know what his internal belief is going to be when he finishes.
Indeed that is the point. It is easy to talk about what you WOULD do, whether as a righty or lefty. Reality of political positions are few and rare between. McCain is playing the bullshit middle and some on the 'right' have been through it (Hitchings) and have been curiously quiet on the subject.
Honestly speaking; I was for the war in Iraq, for treating these fucks as something other as POW's and more illegal combatants. Years ago I got tired of the Bush administration putting off tribunals and doing more illegal shit. charge them or set them free, whether in a war zone or not.
I'm more conservative in the traditional sense, not the assfuck jesus freak sense, than most here, and I want these asshats in a fair trial, whether at this point a fed trial or military trial, I don't care.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Hitchens came out and unequivocably stated that he believed waterboarding was torture after being subjected to it, actually, when he previously had argued it wasn't.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Hitchens came out and unequivocably stated that he believed waterboarding was torture after being subjected to it, actually, when he previously had argued it wasn't.
I like to think that Hitch has some integrity, though. I wouldn't make the same assumption in Hannity's case.
73% of all statistics are made up, including this one.
Oh, Hitchens is awesome. His anti-religion speeches are brilliant, and he flirted with me at one. That he delivered whlie slightly drunk at WSU. It was quite, quite awesome. I can easily forgive him some prior errors, all things said; it wasn't like I didn't make them also.
But Hannity? Hannity has the ethics and honour and integrity of... I first said a piranha, but I'm going to change that to a pile of shit.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
I honestly don't know why Beck and O'Rielly get the lion's share of the conservitard talking head hate around here. Maybe it's just his beady little rodent-like eyes that make him look all the more like a Canadian from South Park and his oblivious sputtering manner, But Hannity easily pisses me off more than either of the two. He's a textbook example of a person who thinks it's devastating rhetoric to call an educated person a "pseudo-intellectual" because he finds the word "pseudo" soooooo exotic and obscure because of the silent p that it'll handily convince everyone that he's the smart one.
The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Oh, Hitchens is awesome. His anti-religion speeches are brilliant, and he flirted with me at one. That he delivered whlie slightly drunk at WSU. It was quite, quite awesome. I can easily forgive him some prior errors, all things said; it wasn't like I didn't make them also.
Hitchens does indeed seem to be a much more admirable figure, and not just because I agree with him on many issues. I've taken to checking out his videos on YouTube lately, and from all appearances, he's head and shoulders above Hannity in terms of both his intelligence and his knowledge. This is not to say that it's proof that he's a more ethical journalist, but my impression is that he is.
Oh, and he might have been more than slightly drunk. He's said that he consumes enough alcohol on a daily basis to "stun or kill a mule", and he seems to function quite highly while doing so.
73% of all statistics are made up, including this one.
TithonusSyndrome wrote:I honestly don't know why Beck and O'Rielly get the lion's share of the conservitard talking head hate around here.
Hannity has always seemed like mostly a joke, though now that he's basically just off on his own he's getting more time to try to make himself a target the way Beck and Bill are. Those two say ridiculous things all the time, but Hannity just seems like a smug coward who likes to gush over his insane guests rather than dare to form an opinion of his own. If he's interviewing Michelle Malkin or Anne Coulter, I'd much rather rip on them than Sean, who seems nothing more than a moron delivery system than a real threat on his own.
I've got to say, the idea of getting waterboarded for charity strikes me as really bizarre. Even if one endorses the idea of waterboarding and genuinely believes it isn't Such A Bad Thing in terms of an interrogation technique, the concept of it is certainly in bad taste, at best. It's not exactly like a using a fairground dunk tank. Charity? Have a freaking bake sale.
Much as I dislike them, Having Beck, Hannity, O'Riley, and Rush around are doing wonders...Mostly because they continue to try and push whats left of the Republicans into ever more extreme and tribalistic groups. Really, the more these people try and run things, the more the GOP looks crazy and out of touch.
Praying is another way of doing nothing helpful
"Congratulations, you get a cookie. You almost got a fundamental English word correct." Pick
"Outlaw star has spaceships that punch eachother" Joviwan Read "Tales From The Crossroads"! Read "One Wrong Turn"!
Crossroads Inc. wrote:Much as I dislike them, Having Beck, Hannity, O'Riley, and Rush around are doing wonders...Mostly because they continue to try and push whats left of the Republicans into ever more extreme and tribalistic groups. Really, the more these people try and run things, the more the GOP looks crazy and out of touch.
Their ratings are huge. What make you think the average American thinks they're kooks?
I am capable of rearranging the fundamental building blocks of the universe in under six seconds. I shelve physics texts under "Fiction" in my personal library! I am grasping the reigns of the universe's carriage, and every morning get up and shout "Giddy up, boy!" You may never grasp the complexities of what I do, but at least have the courtesy to feign something other than slack-jawed oblivion in my presence. I, sir, am a wizard, and I break more natural laws before breakfast than of which you are even aware!
Crossroads Inc. wrote:Much as I dislike them, Having Beck, Hannity, O'Riley, and Rush around are doing wonders...Mostly because they continue to try and push whats left of the Republicans into ever more extreme and tribalistic groups. Really, the more these people try and run things, the more the GOP looks crazy and out of touch.
Their ratings are huge. What make you think the average American thinks they're kooks?
What makes you think their audience is not mainly the 20 percenters?
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know, the piper's calling you to join him
