In the end, there are two incontrovertible data points here: That Muller’s publicist called the thing a hoax and said Muller intended to pretend he was drowning, and that the guy doing the waterboarding was by his own admission as unqualified to perform the procedure as one could possibly be. Muller’s attempts to explain away the first one consist of little more than dubious rhetorical loop-de-loops from a professional provocateur and publicity-hound who has provided, over the years, innumerable reasons why he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. And nobody disputes the second. Even if Muller didn’t deliberately orchestrate this whole stunt from the beginning, it’s clear that whatever happened to him doesn’t qualify as waterboarding in any recognizable sense of the word. His waterboarder had no training and says he’s “the last person” they should have asked to do it. He wasn’t subjected to anything close to the conditions that actual waterboarding victims suffer, or, for that matter, that journalists like Christopher Hitchens who undertook the procedure suffered. He decided to get waterboarded, so he asked his publicist to find someone who knew nothing about it to look it up on the internet and do it to him. We say it all adds up to a fake—either by orchestration or half-assed laziness. The only reason that Olbermann—or anyone else for that matter—could come to a different conclusion is ideological fervor. This, according to Olbermann, is “changing the debate” on torture.