Keith Olbermann, Waterboarding Sean Hannity, and Hannity's Irrelevance

Ever since uber-patriot and flag-wearer Sean Hannity announced on his show that he would prove for charity that waterboarding was not torture and that he himself would undergo the "enhanced interrogation method" to prove it, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has issued the challenge that as soon as Hannity submits to waterboarding, he would donate a thousand dollars a second to a charity of Sean Hannity's choice. Olbermann has made an issue of calling Hannity out on his show "Countdown" every chance he gets.

But that is all over. According to Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity is "now unnecessary."

Most people do not pay attention to Sean Hannity or watch his overly ethnocentric, prone to extremism rantings against anything that slightly left of far right-wing ideology, no more than do many pay attention to Keith Olbermann's liberal tirades against most things conservative. But for those not tuned into the conservative versus liberal dialogue, Wanda Sykes brought the matter to national attention during her controversial appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner earlier in May when she spoke of Hannity's claim that he could withstand waterboarding (because it wasn't torture).

Wanda Sykes joked: "He hasn't done it yet I see. Talking about he can take a waterboarding, please, ok, you might be able to get waterboarded by somebody he knows and trusts, but let somebody from Pakistan waterboard him, or let Keith Olbermann waterboard him." Cameras cut to Olbermann laughing uproariously. "He can't take a waterboarding," Wanda Sykes continued. "I can break Sean Hannity by giving him a middle seat in coach."

In fact, Olbermann took to calling on Sean Hannity to get on with his charitable waterboarding, taunting him (apparently knowing somehow that Hannity would never do it). Other conservative commentators had taken up the chant, though, and at least one was willing to give it a try.

Eric "Mancow" Muller, a conservative Chicago radio talk show host, underwent waterboarding for free, convinced, he said later, that it was not torture and that he would laugh it off. Just seconds into the "technique," which consisted of blindfolding and having water poured over the nose and mouth (unrestrained), Muller erupted up off of the table on which he was laying. He said, "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."

Showing Mancow Muller being waterboarded, Keith Olbermann told his audience that his offer to "the coward Hannity" was withdrawn, because the point Olbermann was attempting to make, that waterboarding was indeed torture, was moot.

Olbermann agreed to give the promised money, one thousand dollars per second, to the military-families charity of the person who conducted the waterboarding on Mancow Muller, "Veterans for Valor." Not to short them -- Muller withstood the waterboarding for less than five seconds -- Keith Olbermann announced he would give them ten thousand dollars.

To Sean Hannity, Olbermann had one more thing to say: "As to Hannity... you are now unnecessary."

To that statement must be added the question: When was he ever?

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Sources:

"White House Correspondents Dinner," C-Span Television

"Countdown," MSNBC Television

"Mancow's Morning Madhouse"

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