P2P-Zone - Oberman to Hannity: Put up or shut up!

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Oberman to Hannity: Put up or shut up!

Quote:

Hannity: My Money Where Your Mouth Is

by Keith Olbermann

It's easily twenty years - thirty, more like - since I saw the late Dr. Albert Sabin burst into tears on television and beg for forgiveness. When I tell his story to friends of mine in medicine, they go silent, and some have experienced profound changes of perspective.

Let's help Sean Hannity turn into Dr. Albert Sabin, if only for a moment.

Dr. Sabin was leading the research on the "live" version of polio vaccine, and stood bitterly and condescendingly against Dr. Jonas Salk's less-tested, more-risky "killed" version. When the manufacture of some of Salk's vaccine was butchered by a pharmaceutical company, Sabin helped get its use stopped, for months. Unknown numbers of kids became victims of polio, in part because Sabin insisted the production mistakes meant the Salk vaccine itself wasn't safe.

Years later, Sabin awoke with body-wide, sometimes paralyzing, intense pain. There was no diagnosis and no relief. Only years later, as Sabin recounted through tears, did the searing pain abate. He had totally misunderstood his job, he said. He had wasted his gifts. He had forgotten that the first task of the doctor is relief of pain. Cure, restoration, research - each was vital. But only when his own pain became the only thing in his life, did he understand what it meant to be a patient, and how wrong he had been during the most dramatic medical events of his life.

I'm not kidding myself here. Hannity doesn't have the material to work with, to manage a full-scale epiphany. To use an unkind phrase we use to bat back and forth at ESPN: No pain, no gain; no brain, no pain.

But his offer the other night to Chuck Grodin to 'prove' that waterboardng isn't torture by allowing it to be done to him, is too important to pass up, because of the image it will certainly produce. No matter what he says afterwards or how he tries to laugh it off, Hannity's certitude will be smashed by Hannity's natural, human panic.

He doesn't have to become Dr. Sabin for more than ten seconds. And many, maybe most, of his viewers, will join him in the collective post-waterboarding lie that he never feared for his life. Regardless, the impact will be sufficient. If it changes the minds of one percent of his supporters, it will have been worth it. And think about the vast numbers of people who have no idea who he is, or who I am, or what this site is, who will know only that a boastful man literally had reality forced upon him.

Thus last night I made my offer to Hannity. He told Chuck he'd do it for families of the troops, and he'd let Chuck do it (Grodin demurred). Those were his only conditions. I'll add a few:

Hannity may be waterboarded live on his show. All I require is that a trustworthy outside observer be present to make sure the waterboarding is a legitimate recreation of what we did to detainees. Chuck Grodin is perfectly acceptable, or Hannity may nominate an alternate, but I must approve the identity of the observer.
Hannity may instead be waterboarded on tape if he prefers. In that event, I require that at least one non-Fox camera crew be permitted access to record all events, along with a trustworthy outside observer. Again, Grodin will be fine.
Hannity must identify the charity or charities, organization or organizations, to which he wants the donation made, so I can verify in advance that the money will indeed get to the families of American troops. The organization cannot be sponsored by, nor affiliated with, Hannity or his employers.
I will donate $1,000 (one thousand dollars) for every second of water-boarding Hannity endures. We will start the clock the moment the first water is poured on him. The clock will stop when Hannity confesses or begins to shout or scream on a prolonged basis, or the medical supervisor determines he is danger of organ failure.
If Hannity admits afterwards he was afraid for his life and that waterboarding is indeed torture, I will double my total contribution.
And I will repeat this offer each night on Countdown until he agrees or declines.

UPDATE, 12:54 PM EDT: I think we're going to have to have a simulated interrogator there. And yes, he's going to have to admit to something instead of just saying "stop."

A simulated interrogator will have to be present and vocal, insisting Hannity confesses.
Unlike those we waterboarded, Hannity need only admit to something factual to get the waterboarding to stop. He may choose among: "Obama is not a socialist," "Waterboarding is torture," or something else mutually agreeable between us.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4...uth-Is-(Update)

I can see him taking several weeks to decide, and, if he does agree to it, spending every free minute of that time being waterboarded so he's used to it. :BL:

Ð :S:

He agreed to be tortured on the air with millions of witnesses. Pick him up and shove his fat ass in a van with a hood over his head. Drive him off to the middle of nowhere and do to him what was done to the detainees. Keep him awake for 11 days and waterboard him 30-40 times. Film it all then drop him off at Fox.

Then ask him if he was tortured.

Ð :S:

I'd make him "admit" Jesus is Satan. That'd open a few eyes.

Problem is of course that for many people the only real lesson from these demos would be that water boarding "works". Not exactly what Olbermann has in mind I'd wager.

- js.

Sure torture works, to some extent. The extent that the person starts telling you whatever comes to mind to get you to stop. But that isn't the point.

The point is that we are better than that and don't stand for it. The point is that we tried and executed those who carried it out against our troops in the past. Every time we've been up against a dictator and or a regime in the world we always pointed out that they torture people. Well, we can't do that any more.

Bush and Cheney put us in the same boat as every ruthless bastard on the planet. Worse, they allowed US service personnel to go to jail for following the direction they gave them.

Pathetic and beneath us in every way.

Ð :S:

We, we, we,....You got a mouse in your pocket?...a british mouse?...who helps you torture people? Or are you just a little piggy going all the way home.

Torturing for information is different than torturing for terrorism, and torturing mass murderers just doesn't seem so bad to normal, intelligent people.

Oh, no! Albed has revoked my citizenship! What will I ever do?!?

Wait, Albed is just someone on a forum. Never mind.

As for torture, we don't do it. It's against the constitution and international law. Bush allowed troops who did it to go to jail for him. Regan prosecuted a Texas sheriff for waterboarding. It's against our every principal, but then I'm not surprised you don't see it that way.

Not surprised in the slightest.

Ð :S:

heh - evangelicals most likely to support torture. no surprise there:

Quote:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

how Christ-like...figures that those who make the biggest show of talking the talk are least likely to walk the walk. sic 'em, Nic:CG:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/rel...ure/index.html

No shit Sherlock :pirc:

Hi tk, The bike is almost done. I've done 40 mi. round trips so far with not much pedaling. It fucking kicks ass up 10*+ grades. I really need to download pics.

What's wrong with waterboarding terrorists who want to kill Americans?

Should we hire a massage therapist, give them a back rub and they'll talk?

Quote:

Originally Posted by zombywoof (Post 264673)

What's wrong with waterboarding terrorists who want to kill Americans?

Should we hire a massage therapist, give them a back rub and they'll talk?

damn right. so why not let cops waterboard, too?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ðiego (Post 264592)

Pathetic and beneath us in every way.

Ð :S:

I can't add to that..........