You can't keep a good man down. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is reportedly shopping for a book deal -- and wants an advance of over $2 million to tell his story. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

Why is Dick Cheney's daughter the only person he can find to go on TV to defend him?

This out from MSNBC ...

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on tonight's "Countdown" pledged to donate $10,000 to charity after disc jockey Erich "Mancow" Muller was waterboarded today on live radio, in an attempt to prove the technique was "not torture." After six seconds Muller said it was "absolutely torture" and that were he to be interrogated by the use of waterboarding he would "confess to anything." Olbermann promised to donate $10,000 to the charity Veterans of Valor, founded by Sgt. Klay South, who administered the waterboarding to Muller today, and withdrew his offer to Sean Hannity to make a donation to the charity of his choice if he followed through on his offer to undergo waterboarding.

If you haven't seen the Mancow waterboarding, you can see the full video here. It's powerful on a number of different levels.

The upshot is that the guy goes into it in cocky Hannity mode and then after maybe 5 or 6 seconds he struggles up and he's converted, claiming it's "absolutely torture", that he never realized it was that bad, etc.

Now, here's the thing. I'm genuinely surprised that he was was surprised that it was that bad. I'm not saying that for effect. Muller really seemed to think it was like getting dunked by your friend in a pool or something. Just factually, everyone who knows anything about this says that it's horrific and you pretty much instantly feel like you're drowning and at the edge of death. And it's a physiological response. So even if you've gone through it ten times and know rationally that you don't die, it doesn't matter. You're instantly put back into the mental space of drowning and being at the edge of death.

I must confess that when I see Hannity or the rest of these guys saying it's no big deal and it's not torture, I kind of figured they're playing semantic games and essentially saying 'I don't care what we do to evil Muslim terrorist bad guys.' Hang them from them toes, waterboard them, whatever, who cares? I don't agree with that. It's hideous. But I understand it. But here it turns out they're just completely ignorant, just haven't been paying attention. Just in the purest factual sense have no idea what they're talking about.

I know, I know ... why am I surprised?

(ed.note: When does Hannity get waterboarded? That may be waterboarding I can believe in.)

From TPM Reader B ...

First WTC the guy went back for the security deposit for the truck they blew up...McVeigh did everything short of driving into a police car fleeing the scene...Atta and the boys could only have achieved what they did with the most mind numbingly incompetent executive branch ever. The master plan?

I'll give you the Tylenol tamperer had some talent but that was a lone nut...In anything with multiple people there has been an extraordinary lack of competence...This was the screw up that helped let 9/11 happen - they were looking for the exotic hollywood terrorists taking over missile silos with Hollywood action figures

I MIGHT be able to give you the attempted take over in South Africa nuke facility was an "A-team" but those guys seemed clearly gov't backed...So can't really count em...

Not that I'm arguing the point these guys were not pathetic in the NY case - I'm just saying in history we've rarely had a terrorist in the field that wasn't.

It's always a balance when reporting out these kinds of cases. It's certainly true that you don't need to be a genius to kill a lot of people. I'm not sure I agree with all of B's examples. Whatever you can say about 9/11, it was ingenious in its conception and pretty well pulled off. But successful terrorist operations frequently have 'grunts' if not the planners who are garden variety morons. So, it's definitely true you don't have to be a genius to kill a lot of people.

That said, I don't think 'lack of competence' quite captures the Newburgh crew.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

As you can see in our news feature, we've got a run-down of the four guys who made up the Newburgh Four, the ones arrested Tuesday night for attempting to blow up a synagogue in Riverdale, New York.

I have a fascination with the ne'er-do-wells and grifters and mental patients and would-be tough guys who get picked up in these D-Team terrorist stings like this and the Liberty Eight case from a couple years ago. In any case, it's a fascinating read, so I strongly recommend it to you. But there's one thing that jumped out at me. The sting was put together by a Pakistani immigrant who got arrested back in 2002 for helping immigrants cheat on their drivers' tests. (Yes, there are several novels in this one.) And he's been working as government informant since then to stay out of the slammer. But here's the thing. This isn't this guy's first score.

A few years back he posed as a terrorist arms dealer and busted two guys from Albany, Mohammed Hossain and Yassin Aref. I don't think it necessarily means anything one way or another. But you'd think that once you'd pulled off your first major counter-terrorism sting, your usefulness as a CI would be sort of compromised and the feds would put you out to pasture. But apparently not.

Given the sophistication of these dudes, his target audience doesn't seem to be a really sharp bunch.

Former West Wing executive producer Lawrence O'Donnell and Liz Cheney squared off on Good Morning America this morning.

Late Update: One point: I don't have any objection to the cable nets carrying Cheney's speech yesterday live. He's still newsworthy, and the juxtaposition of his speech and Obama's was dramatic if not quite momentous. But the idea that there's now a debate in this country in which Obama and Cheney represent the two sides, as Chris Cuomo claims in the GMA segment, is simply wrong.

Those who subscribe to the Cheney view were marginalized even within the Bush Administration five years ago. They lost that debate. Obama, on the other hand, has taken, as should now be obvious, a much less forceful stance on these issues than many of his supporters had hoped. You might call it a more centrist position (though I'm resistant to that characterization for several reasons). But in any event, it's not necessarily representative of the progressive point of view. Cheney is an outlier. He doesn't represent "one side" of this debate. But if you frame it as a debate between Cheney's extreme position and Obama's very moderate position, you've suddenly dictated an outcome to this so-called debate that is considerably to the right of where the political center is right now on this issue.

TPM Reader BB, a "proud citizen of the Netherlands," says it's time the U.S. man up and stop NIMBYing the Gitmo detainees:

If you live outside of the US, or the US centric bubble. then the incredible stupidity of the this viewpoint is obvious.

Where does the World Court reside? It resides in the Hague in the Netherlands. the Netherlands has a population of 16 million (that are not allowed to bear arms or such).

The world courts deals with the worst of the worst, anything in Gitmo pails to what these folks have done.

Let's take those war criminals (of which dozens have been tried and sentenced) from the Balkan conflict as an example. Here is a group that still has lots of support (Serbs primarily) all across Europe. They are in cells in the Hague which is driving distance from their homeland. Not like some poor Afghan farmer totally divorced from his people, these people have strong support living with a few hours drive!! Almost nothing could stop them from attacking and trying to release there leaders (and heros), or at least taking revenge on the country they are incarcerated in. The REAL danger to this court pails to anything the perceived Gitmo people could possibly do.

Just look at the history of the Balkan conflict, its horrible geenocide and the people who did the killing, and then grab a map to see where the two countries lie, you will get the picture. Then do the same for the Afghan conflict ... Kinda makes you giggle.

But, do you hear the good people of the Netherlands on the streets demanding these criminals leave or cowering under their beds at night? No, it just might be that not all folks in the globe are NIMBY and some have the balls to realize that freedom comes at a price, and you never know when you will have to pay up in full.

Could it be that a small country in "old" Europe has more balls than the gun toting folk wingnuts of the US have?

The most pointed attack on President Obama in Dick Cheney's speech yesterday was his claim that after all is said and done Obama is still reserving to himself the right to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" in the future. We documented that this talking point is a riff off comments made by CIA Director Leon Panetta -- and that it's arguably stretching what Panetta actually said. But it should be noted that Chris Matthews gave David Axelrod a chance to rebut Cheney's claim, and Axelrod only danced around the question. Watch the video. We asked the White House yesterday to comment on Cheney's claim and got no response.

Zack Roth puts together the rap sheets on the Newburgh Four. Highlight: The guy in the group who claimed to have lived in Afghanistan when he was young was lying to boost his "terror cred."

GOP sends Newt on to Meet the Press to debate Dick Durbin.

GM headed toward a bankruptcy filing next week, closely supervised by the Obama Administration. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Porn star Stormy Daniels creates the Stormy Daniels Exploratory Committee as a first step to challenging Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) in next year's election.

Every day, as you know, we bring you The Day in a Hundred Seconds. Today, though, weaving together the day's two speeches, it's particularly inspired and brings together what the day was about. Take a look.

So have 14% of the released Gitmo detainees "returned to the battlefield" as Vice President Cheney and his daughter keep saying? Maybe not.

Full-size video at TPMtv.com.

To help get around GOP obstruction tactics, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has hired a speed reader for his committee staff. The new hire put on a demonstration for committee members today.

In more substantive House news, Democrats blocked the GOP's cynical ploy to launch a House investigation of Nancy Pelosi for charging that the CIA lied to her.

And so it goes.

Our compressed video highlights of Cheney's "Unpleasant Things" speech.