Only Nixon can go to China. That's why the waterboarding of Chicago-based radio host Matthew Erich "Mancow" Muller has the potential to end the sophistry surrounding the medieval torture technique in conservative circles for good.

Last Friday, Mancow did what higher profile skeptics of the charge that the Bush administration engaged in torture don't have the courage to do. Where Fox News host Sean Hannity last month glibly agreed to be waterboarded ("I'll do it for charity"), Mancow actually underwent the procedure during the live broadcast of his popular morning show.

Like many of his fellow travelers, Mancow routinely ridiculed the idea that waterboarding was anything more dangerous than "splashing water" on the face. He offered to undergo the procedure for at least 30 seconds to prove that critics of the Bush administration's use of the technique had exaggerated its evil.

If all went according to plan, Mancow would emerge from the extended rinsing of the inner lining of his nostrils laughing and spitting water into the faces of those who dared to equate "enhanced interrogation" with torture.

Sitting on the 7-foot-long table, Mancow tried to "man up" with the comic bravado that is his show's signature. Marine Sgt. Clay South, the man who would administer the water wasn't having it, according to media reports. "The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Sgt. South said. "[Mancow] is going to wiggle, he's going to scream; he's going to wish he never did this."

Still, there was an undeniable logic to the stunt. Being waterboarded would be a ratings bonanza for "Mancow's Morning Madhouse." Once the footage of a torture skeptic "successfully" defying the critics of waterboarding made the rounds, it would elevate Mancow from the "D-list" of Howard Stern imitators to the first tier of conservative yakkers like Rush, Beck, Hannity and Michael Savage. A little water on the face could potentially yield big dividends.

But the real world closed in quickly once Mancow's legs were elevated, his feet tied and a towel pressed over his face. It was telling that he was already on the verge of freaking out even before a single drop was administered. Don't be surprised if some, including fraus on the right like Ann Coulter, question whether Mancow was brave enough to do it in the first place. Everyone agrees Mancow has more guts and conviction than Sean Hannity, though.

Alas, the hoped-for propaganda minute did not happen. Six seconds into the procedure, Mancow emerged gasping and spitting water. Instead of brave forbearance, Mancow Muller had the look of a man who had seen a terrible light.

"It was way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," a badly shaken Mancow 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."

The symbolic value of Mancow's road to Damascus experience is already being felt. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell cited it during an interview on "Face the Nation" Sunday. Mancow's change of heart is bound to undermine the dogma that worse things than waterboarding take place during fraternity hazing rituals.

Journalist Christopher Hitchens described his experience of voluntary waterboarding in Vanity Fair last year: "You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it 'simulates' the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning -- or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure," he wrote.

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads; we put water on their face." Instead of being able to laugh off his waterboarding stunt, Mancow's example has provided a profoundly uncomfortable challenge to fellow conservatives who continue to insist that waterboarding isn't akin to one of our most primal fears -- suffocation.

Every time former Vice President Dick Cheney or the cast of "Fox & Friends" or Sean Hannity assert that there is nothing wrong with waterboarding as a tool of coercion, many will remember Mancow's brave example and wonder if these people have half his guts. The number of conservative broadcasters with the courage to test their theory by undergoing the technique can be counted on one finger.

Who needs the Fairness Doctrine? Just strap Rush or Hannity on a gurney and "splash water" on their faces. How many seconds will it take before the truth bubbles up from their nostrils?