Progress Illinois

This morning, WLS Radio host Mancow Muller subjected himself to waterboarding live on the air.  He agreed to the stunt hoping that he would be able to say affirmatively that the interrogation tactic does not constitute torture.  NBC 5 has an account of what happened:

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand,  Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

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.

As you can hear in the video below, Mancow's conclusion was this: Waterboarding is "absolutely torture (UPDATE II: We swapped out the NBC clip for a YouTube video produced by WLS itself.  It gives a better sense of how genuinely shaken Mancow was after the experience.):

Jonathan Chait's spot-on take: "I think the torture debate would be mighty different if more of the conservatives who scoff at waterboarding would try the same thing."

UPDATE I: The Sun-Times has video of other waterboarding skeptics who have subjected themselves to this interrogation tactic.