You can draw your own conclusions here, but judging from at least one email (see below) it appears as if shock jock Mancow Muller’s alleged waterboarding might have been 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

As reported in the Washington Times, radio host Melanie Morgan and Times columnist John McCaslin have been named anchors for The Washington Times” new morning-drive radio show, “America’s Morning News”, set to debut nationwide June 15 “from a newly built, state-of-the-art broadcast facility inside The Times” newsroom.”

“Melanie and John will leverage every ounce of expertise, energy and gumshoe reporting out of The Times” investigative newsroom. They know how to break stories that matter to the American public, are passionate about holding the powerful to account and are committed to unearthing the stories that matter most to Americans – at the dinner table, by the water cooler and inside their pocketbook,” Times Executive Editor John Solomon said.

The show is being syndicated by Talk Radio Network, which has previously showcased “such national talents as Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage and Monica Crowley.”

“We are thrilled at the opportunity to partner with The Washington Times in developing this unique and highly entertaining new program. It will rank with the giants,” said Talk Radio Network Chief Executive Mark Masters.

More and more media figures are now figuring out that waterboarding — oops, I mean “enhanced interrogation procedures” — IS torture. To their credit, they aren’t taking anyone’s word for it — but trying the procedure themselves.

The latest is WLS radio shock jock Erich ‘Mancow” Muller, who concluded the “procedure” is “way worse than I thought it would be” after subjecting himself to the controversial practice live on his show recently.

“I want to find out if it’s torture,” Mancow told his listeners, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture. With a paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

As NBC News reported, “Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“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.”

Playboy.com journalist Mike Guy also recently underwent the procedure and came to the same conclusion…and last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment — and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward.

“Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture,” Hitchens concluded in his article.

As reported in industry trade journal Broadcasting & Cable, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell challenged acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps to support an up or down vote of Broadcaster Freedom Act in the House of Representatives, after Copps told a media reform forum that the doctrine was not coming back, that conservative claims that it would were a “phony issue” and comments he that those who connected the fairness doctrine with efforts to boost minority ownership and diversity –like Bozell — were “issue mongering”.

The Broadcaster Freedom Act, passed by the Senate in late February, would bar reimpostition of the doctrine by the FCC.

President Obama has said on many occasions he does not support the doctrine’s return, but conservatives like Bozell are worried that the FCC’s localism proposals, including community boards consulting on what programming broadcasters should air in the public interest, could be a form of ‘fairness doctrine lite.’

The Guardian Unlimited out of the UK recently featured me extensively in a piece headlined “Shock jocks: voice of America or voice of hate?”

“To the strains of Rule, Britannia! morphing into the old Soviet national anthem, one of America’s most popular talk radio show hosts launched into what has become a daily diatribe against Britain’s home secretary, Jacqui Smith, for banning him from the UK this week for hate speech,” Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal wrote from Washington.

McGreal later quoted me at length, noting that shock jocks like Savage regularly “claim that they’re just entertainers and yet they deliver this toxic mix of pseudo journalism, misinformation, hate-filled speech, jokes,” said Rory O’Connor, author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio. “It’s all bound together so when it’s convenient for them to be entertainers they say, hey, it’s all just a joke. But when it’s not, they say they’re giving you information that you need.”

AND:

O’Connor says conservative talk radio taps in to a disaffected but vocal minority. “This movement was born 20 years ago out of a sense of victimisation and voicelessness by a reasonably large segment of the population, and clearly Limbaugh and the people who followed him tapped in to some real sentiments of people who felt they weren’t being heard,” he said. “There is a minority of the American populace which is angry about these issues. Savage has 8 million listeners but we are a country of 300 million people. It’s a large niche audience but there is no way a majority of the people agree with him. But does it make a difference? Yes. They succeeded so widely that the conservatives they backed ended up controlling the [Bush] presidency, both houses of Congress and the supreme court.”

AND finally, on the subject of immigration reform:

The subject consumed the talk shows. In June 2007 an opinion poll showed that immigration had supplanted Iraq as the leading issue under discussion on the shows. “They forced this right to the top of the public agenda. They spent months denouncing the proposed legislation. They rebranded it as “shamnesty” not amnesty. Savage dubbed the bill the “i-bomb” and vowed to “derail this train of treason” Now with that type of talk it’s not surprising members of Congress, including conservative Republican senators, not only hear from these people but are threatened by them,” said O’Connor.

The Boston Globe reports that at least “some sponsors at Boston’s WTKK-FM radio station have stopped advertising and balked about whether to resume their ads if the station reinstates Jay Severin, the talk show host suspended last week for derogatory comments about Mexicans.”

Severin is said to be in talks with the station about returning to the air, and his agent expects he will be back on his afternoon drive-time show soon.

Severin was suspended after calling Mexicans “criminaliens,”leeches,” “the world’s lowest of primitives,” and exporters of “women with mustaches and VD.”

His remarks caused at least a few advertisers to pull ads , such as The Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which planned to broadcast 25 commercial spots over two weeks in protest of a proposed hike in the state’s sales tax.

“If he comes back on, we’re not spending any money with him,” said Will Keyser, a spokesman for the Retailers Association. “We don’t want to be associated with him. This guy is very controversial right now. He said some things we don’t want to be associated with.”

Another company’s advertising plans with the station were said by a spokesperson to be “in a holding pattern.”

“If the situation is rectified correctly — an apology and a retraction of his statement would be appropriate – I would consider advertising with him again,” he said. “There’s no need for any racism, and we don’t want to offend a group of people. I am waiting to hear from the station about their plans.”

“Jay remains suspended indefinitely,” station spokeswoman Heidi Raphael noted. “We have no further comment.”

Leading shock jock Michael Savage has been added to a list of “undesirables” banned from entry into the UK, along with more than a dozen other individuals considered by that country’s Home Secretary to hold extreme views.

Savage, who describes his own style as “explosive” and liberalism as a “mental disorder,” was said by The Home Office “to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence”.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: “Coming to the UK is a privilege and I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life. Therefore, I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views as I want them to know that they are not welcome here.”

Michael Savage threatened to sue in response, saying that he had been defamed and endangered by Smith’s decision.

“This lunatic . . . is linking me up with Nazi skinheads who are killing
people in Russia,” he said. “She’s putting me in a league with Hamas
murderers who kill Jews on buses.

“I have never advocated violence. I’ve been on the air 15 years. My views
may be inflammatory, but they’re not violent in any way.”

Currently on the web site of WTTK in Boston, home of the suspended shock jock Jay Severin:

“WTKK and Greater Media value an open and vigorous dialogue, but we also adhere to basic principles of civility, common decency and respect for all cultures. We believe Jay’s suspension is the best way to uphold both of these corporate policies. WTKK Management met with Jay Severin and his agent today. He will remain on suspension until further notice.”

Until FURTHER NOTICE? Why didn’t anyone at WTTK “notice” Severin’s lack of “basic principles of civility, common decency and respect for all cultures” before this latest episode? And why is the station only suspending Severin — instead of firing the bum?

Talk host Cenk Urgur of The Young Turks program defended Don Imus when he made racially-tinged remarks a while back — but even Uygur can’t abide recent out-of-control comments by Boston shock jock Jay Severin:

Jay Severin’s Insanely Racist Rant

I am not quick to call something racist. In fact, I wrote an editorial pleading with everyone not to call the NY Post chimp cartoon racist. I went on MSNBC and defended that position. I’m afraid calling someone racist often times shuts off dialogue and should be reserved for only the clearest and worst cases. I also defended Don Imus and insisted he should not be fired for his comments.

So, I have some credibility here when I say conservative talk show host Jay Severin should absolutely be fired for his racist comments against Mexicans on the radio. I hesitate in writing about this because Severin is a pathetic nobody who might be looking for national attention by making these kinds of incredibly ignorant comments. But, on the other hand, there have to be consequences for this kind of deeply hateful speech. And if people don’t argue forcefully enough against it, there won’t be enough pressure on the station to get rid of this hateful racist.

So, what did he say that’s got me so worked up? Check it out, and you be the judge:

As you heard in the video above, Severin has been suspended by WTKK-FM in Boston. But that is not nearly enough. If you don’t get fired for this, what do you get fired for?

Here are just some of his prize quotes from the show:

“So now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico – women with mustaches and VD – now we have swine flu.”

He described Mexicans as “the world’s lowest of primitives.”

“When we are the magnet for primitives around the world – and it’s not the primitives” fault by the way, I’m not blaming them for being primitives – I’m merely observing they’re primitive.”

“It’s millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America.”

“We should be, if anything, surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types already, considering the number of criminaliens already here.”

He also said that emergency rooms had “become essentially condos for Mexicans.”

And on a 2004 broadcast, he compared Muslims to a fifth column in this country and said in response to a caller who thought people should reach out to Muslims: “You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them.”

But unfortunately calling for the murder of Muslim-Americans has become so commonplace and acceptable these days that he didn’t even come close to getting fired for those comments. So, I guess he figured he had free reign to attack the other half of M&Ms.

Or maybe he’s just desperate because his ratings have dropped to 14th in the market in the demos. By the way, if you weren’t outraged enough already. You want to know how much he makes for spewing this kind of hate and being the fourteenth best radio show in his timeslot? One million dollars, plus bonuses!

I believe a person has to do a lot to cross the line into a firing offense. Talk show hosts have an interesting but tough job. You usually have to talk for three hours a day, often unscripted. You have to entertain your audience and push the boundaries to spark interesting conversations. That is part of the reason why I give talk hosts huge leeway and why I defended Imus. But there has to be a line somewhere. And this is clearly it. Jay Severin should be fired immediately.