Debbie Schlussel | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1969-04-09)April 9, 1969 (age 56) |
| Education | University of Michigan (BA) University of Wisconsin, Madison (JD,MBA) |
| Website | Official website |
Debbie Schlussel (born April 9, 1969) is an Americanattorney,author,political commentator, movie critic, TV host, andblogger. She writes movie reviews and commentary focusing onpop culture,politics,Islamic terrorism,American Muslims,illegal immigration,news, andsports.
Schlussel is a member of theDetroit Film Critics Society, who reviews films for both radio and her website.[1]
The New York Times described her in 2010 as, "a kind of all-purpose film critic, political commentator and Web opinion spinner."[2] She was a talk show host at radio stationWXYT-FM, then known as WKRK, inDetroit from 2002 to 2003.[3]
Professor of Media and Public Affairs William Youmans[4] described Schussel as a "leading right-wing observer of AD [Arab Detroit, whose] blogging, articles, and op-eds inform other right-wing activists, who mobilize against government-community relations when they seem too cozy. This group has called for greater scrutiny of Arab and Muslim Americans by government officials, and officials they consider pro-Arab are frequent targets of their protests. Consistently, Schlussel and her allies have describedDetroit's Arab Americans as potential terrorists."[5] Professor Julianne Hammer described Schussel as an "anti-Muslim pundit".[6]
Schlussel has alleged that American politicians, including the late formerRepublican SenatorFred Thompson and formerDemocratic PresidentBarack Obama, have connections with radical Islam,[7] In October 2001 she alleged that PresidentGeorge W. Bush was connected to theCouncil on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR later sued Schlussel of trademark violation when she used their acronym in a web-domain directing readers toIslamophobic webpages.[8][9]
In 2007, she stated thatatheists are intolerant of Christians,[10][11] and that American Muslims are no more moderate than those in the Middle East; that blog post of hers was read aloud onThe Rush Limbaugh Show.[12][13]
After the killing ofOsama bin Laden, Schlussel wrote on her blog, "1 down, 1.8 billion to go", referring to the world's total Muslim population.[14][15]
In 2011, she was listed by theSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as one of 10 people in the United States' "Anti-Muslim Inner Circle".[16][17] She has been identified as part of thecounter-jihad movement.[18]
On May 30, 2012, Schlussel wrote a blog post[19] commenting about a speech by PresidentBarack Obama, in which he mistakenly used the phrase "Polish death camps" referring to theGerman death camps in occupied Poland.[20][21] She said Obama owed no apology for his remark, and she criticized
the feigned shock and fake moralizing over his comments, yesterday, about GermanNazi death camps in Poland being a Polish death camp ... Poles murdered millions of Jews, they maintained several death camps, and they wiped out almost all of both sides of my family, as well as those in hundreds of thousands of other Jewish families. This wasn't just the Nazis. It was tens of thousands of eager Poles and more.[19]
In addition to discussing Polishcollaboration with the Nazis, she said that a "majority were all too happy for theJudenrein". She discounted thePolish Righteous Among the Nations by stating that only a "very tiny few"gentile Poles aided the Jews.[19] Her commentary provoked protest in Poland.[22] The chairman of thePolish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Commission,Grzegorz Schetyna, called her commentary a pack of lies.[23]
In its daily news release, thePolish government-affiliatedInstitute of National Remembrance dubbed Schlussel's commentary as defamatory.[24]