Debbie Does Lunacy – And Just About Nothing Else
[Posted by Xrlq]
Anyone who dislikes Ann Coulter should really, really, really hate Debbie Schlussel. While Coulter jerks people’s chains by makes outrageous statements with a gleam in her eye, Schlussel just spews her hate with no trace of humor at all. Case in point: while every American with an ounce of decency celebrated Jill Carroll’s release, Schlussel pulled a Fred Phelps and piled on with a series of increasingly shrill posts implying Carroll was a terrorist sympathizer. When called on her tone-deaf behavior, Schlussel turns around and plays the victim, arguing that she owes Carroll no apologies for her smears, yet for some oddball reason every blogger who got a minor detail about Schlussel’s propaganda wrong must owe her an apology. A brief summary of Schlussel’s, smears, innuendos, guilt-by-association-with-an-association-with-an-association arguments and outright lies is here.
Schlussel played the victim card again when Ace and Jeff offered her a chance to debate Rusty Shackleford, whom she also had the chutzpah to call a “nut” even after leaving a series of deranged comments on his blog. Why am I not surprised?
UPDATE: Beth and Beth have more, as do Misha, Florida Cracker and Right Wing Nation. The first Beth offers a brilliant suggestion: Carnival of Debbie Schlussel is a Cupid Stunt. Meanwhile, Don Surber, who is far more charitable than I, asks his readers to pray for D.S. rather than at her.
–Xrlq
Yeah, she’s a loon. I do think, however, that this guy she says knew Jill Carroll is legitimate. I’m not sure that Carroll is inviolate just because she was a hostage, yannow? She seems to be a classic case of a self-hating American.
CraigC (28872d) — 4/11/2006 @ 9:34 pmI really could care less if someone who went to Arab language class with Jill Carroll says she’s a Pali sympathizer or hates George Bush (a member of the press a Bush Hater? Where!), or even that Carroll is an “anti-American” – a term misused by most of us on the right (including me at times) and one that carries with it a lot of symbolic baggage.
The point isn’t her biases. The point is that she was held at gunpoint by people who have proven in the past that they will not hesitate to kill Americans regardless of how much they love Arabs or hate America. Carroll (who has been praised by our military for some of her dispatches) knew this and seemed pretty scared when she made that video pleading for her life. And even if her comments after her release where still not up to Schlussel et al’s pro-American specs I am mystified by the reaction that either she somehow deserved to be threatened with death simply for being an American or that she actually may have had a hand in her kidnapping, a charge for which there is not a shred of proof.
Face it. Schlussel represents the absolute worst of righty blogs; shrillness, a shallow perspective on events, and a disturbing tendency to lash out at those who disagree with her by exhibiting a pathological need to threaten defamation of character and subsequent legal action.
She is unhinged. And her recent actions have garnered her more links and monster traffic. Does that say something about blogs in general? Sadly, it may indicate that we may not be as “self-correcting” as we think we are if writers like Schlusses can be rewarded for spewing such vileness.
Rick Moran (71415b) — 4/12/2006 @ 3:23 amCraigC (who usually kicks my ass at quote quizzes, but this time beat me by only one song):
Maybe he is, maybe he’s not. Schlussel provides no proof that he is; she merely claims to have vetted him, and then asks her readers to trust her on that. Well, I don’t. This is the same woman who concluded Jill Carroll was an America-hater BEFORE the guy surfaced, based on almost no evidence at all (for the list of “evidence” on which this conclusion was based, in a nutshell, go here). Schlussel has already shown her decision-making process to he horribly flawed, so there’s no reason to trust her judgment here, even if we assume she honestly believes the commenter is real. Given Schlussel’s dishonesty, I’m not even sure we ought to assume that. For all you or I know, the guy could be just another sock puppet.
Even if the commenter is real (and I’ll concede that he probably is), his comments don’t corroborate Schlussel’s claim that Carroll “hates” America or her implication that she sympathizes with terrorism. All they just confirm is what most of us have assumed all along, namely that she was a naive, 20-something, left-wing moonbat (aren’t all journalists?) prior to her capture. They don’t tell us a f’n thing about what Carroll’s views are now.
No one said she should be. Carroll herself put it well when she said she wants to be judged as a journalist, not as a hostage. When she starts publishing again, by all means, judge that. Meanwhile, feel free to judge her pre-capture journalism all you want, but don’t confuse the pre-capture Jill Carroll, who we all know, with the post-release one, from whom we have nothing but a few brief comments to the media.
Maybe the new Jill Carroll will write something like this:
Or maybe she’ll write something more like this:
Or she could write something else. Until she starts publishing again, we simply don’t know. The only thing we do know – or at least, almost know – is that whatever she does write will be misquoted by Debbie Schlussel.
Xrlq (f52b4f) — 4/12/2006 @ 5:46 amYep, sorry Craig, but like Rick said, I don’t care if she’s the biggest barking moonbat to ever have skulked out of the People’s Republic of San Franciscograd. She’s still an American, and they’re still the terrorists.
And you’re exactly right Xrlq, she could just as easily have had a conversion of sorts after that experience. Either way, Debbie Schlussel hates everyone who doesn’t agree with every thing she says. We’re all “nuts” or “illiterate” or “terror sympathizers.” It’s so ridiculous it’s funny, except for the fact that people actually take what she says as factual and accurate (why they do is beyond me, though).
Beth D.’s idea is excellent. That way we’d have all of the stuff in one place for the bedwetters like “shawn” and “Bart” over in Ace’s comments (from yesterday). 😉
Beth (4c11b6) — 4/12/2006 @ 7:07 amShe even had a falling out with the lunatics at stoptheaclu. I mean, how nutty do you have to be?
actus (6234ee) — 4/12/2006 @ 7:30 amWell, that’s almost the point. See here.
rightwingprof (663991) — 4/12/2006 @ 8:05 amAnd Debbie has gone over the deep end again!
She is threatening me and my husband with lawsuits because John photoshopped her picture so it was part of my horse’s ass. She is claiming copyright protection of the photo originally used and is just unreal in her behaviour.
XLRQ – it is time to do a Cupid Stunt Carnival!
Beth Donovan (09036a) — 5/3/2006 @ 5:37 amGood idea! I’d offer to host but I’m probably not a good candidate since I was recently dumped by Google.
Xrlq (f52b4f) — 5/3/2006 @ 8:31 am