Olbermann Dogs Hannity Over Waterboarding

"Sean, it is torture," wateboarded Mancow tells his buddy

(NEWSER) - Right-wing mouth Sean Hannity, who chickened out on a dare to be waterboarded for charity, still claims the procedure is not torture, says conservative shock jock Erich "Mancow" Muller, who discovered firsthand it "absolutely" is. Mancow again described his experience being waterboarded to Keith Olbermann last night as "horrific," despite Hannity's phonecall afterward reiterating his claim that it's still not torture. More»

Fox doesn't have rules against campaign donations; MSNBC requires permission

(NEWSER) - OK, so Keith Olbermann donated to three liberal candidates, and he shouldn't have: But the episode underscores exactly how common an occurrence political donations are in the realm of cable news. Politico takes its investigation a step further and finds that Olbermann is far from the only offender: Fox analysts Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee have given $20,500 this year to GOP candidates, while Olbermann's MSNBC cohort Joe Scarborough made a network-approved $4200 donation to a 2006 congressional race in Oregon, and apparently slipped another candidate $5000 in April. More»

Says term 'hoax' used to throw off police, station management

(NEWSER) - Erich “Mancow” Muller is outraged by the Gawker report that he faked his own waterboarding, the Chicago Tribune reports. The right-wing shock jock defended himself last night on MSNBC's Countdown: “It’s like saying that Mike Tyson’s daughter didn’t really hang herself,” he said. He theorized that “dark forces” were seeking to discredit his conclusion that waterboarding is torture. More»

(NEWSER) - Erich “Mancow” Muller’s on-air waterboarding was a hoax, an anonymous tipster tells Gawker, forwarding a seemingly damning e-mail exchange between the shock jock’s publicist and a veterans group she was hoping could find a torturer. “It is going to have to look ‘real,’” wrote Jerry Springer alum Linda Shafran, “but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning. It will be a hoax but have to look real.” More»

Olbermann ready to shell out to see Hannity waterboarded

(NEWSER) - It may have been an attention-seeking stunt when Sean Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded. If so, it worked, at least to get the attention of Keith Olbermann, who kept the long-running MSNBC/Fox pundit-smackdown going last night by putting money on the table. Olbermann offered to give $1,000 to military families for every second Hannity is waterboarded, the Huffington Post reports. More»