It was not a publicity stunt. Plain and simple. Not a good idea to say things that will turn off your loyal conservative listeners, especially when your only 2nd-tier to begin with. And you won't win over any liberals or lefties simply by saying what's obviously true one time and then returning to your usual line of b.s. on almost everything else (that tons of other talkers already dominate anyway). Conservatives that don't listen to him and don't want to have plenty of others to tune in to. Liberals and lefties that like to monitor those they disagree with are going to pay more attention to the big dogs (O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, etc.) - there's only so much time in the day to waste, after all.
And liberals and lefties have NOT vilified him because of this. They've given him some credit (on this one, single issue) for having the integrity to tell it like it is, even if he has to admit that he was wrong in his initial view. (See Olbermann, for example - he didn't vilify him at all.)
He might be honest about waterboarding - that it was an experience of torture - but that doesn't make him smart.
If he gets a ratings boost over this, I bet it will be quite temporary.
