Debbie Does Malice

"2005 Weblog Award Finalist" and C-list pundit Debbie Schlussel once again beat the Em-Ess-Em to the punch. This time, she has scooped Cho Seung-Hui's connection to global jihad. Seems that with the help of other anti-jihadists, Debbie (as well as the equally loathsome Pamela Geller Oshry ) sleuthed her way to to the obscure Flickr account of a Muslim Indonesian woman who goes by the name "Eldarossell." After baiting her readers with a completely gratuitous picture of one of Eldarossel's female friends wrapped in an Islamic head dressing, Schlussel moves in for the kill. She next shows a picture of a South Korean friend of Eldarossell's named Cho Seung Hoo (as opposed to "Hui"). Eldearossel befriended Hoo while he was studying computer science in Indonesia. While there, he took the name "Ishmael." It's not at all uncommon for Asian people to adopt local names while visiting foreign countries.

From there, Schlussel and Geller let their crank, obsessive Muslim-baiting take over. Hoo and Hui must be the same person! Hui is a jihadist! The Blacksburg massacre is just the latest battle in the global war on terror!

You see, the Virginia Tech killer was apparently a skilled marksman. Could it be that he studied marksmanship at Islamic terror camps in Indonesia? Schlussel doesn't know. She's just asking. And golly, don't Hoo and Hui look remarkably similar?

Well, no. They really don't, other than that they're both young Asian men with glasses.

But don't let that stop you, Debbie. The kicker for Schlussel is that after being "discovered," Eldarossel took down the photo of her friend.

Strangely, since yesterday, that photo has been removed by Miss Eldarossell, though the rest of her photos remain up. Also removed were the many comments posted by visitors to the site noting that her friend (or relative?) "Ismail," sure looked like Cho Seung-Hui, and was probably him, given the caption she posted.

Yes. That sure is strange. Or not. Perhaps EldaRossel removed the photo because she was mortified that dimwitted American bloggers had pulled photos from the Flickr account she'd set up to share pictures with her friends and family, posted them on their blogs to score cheap political points, then suggested her friend is a Muslim militant and mass murderer. Can you see, Debbie, how that might make someone who didn't ask for this publicity want to take the photo down?

As EldaRossel notes in her response, her friend is still studying in Indonesia. He is Christian. And he's still very much alive. I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet an MSM-er would have taken the time to email EldaRossel before posting a man's picture on the Internet and suggesting he's a mass murderer. Silly, America-hating media.

I don't know if Hui sympathized with Islamic terrorists or not. The "Ishmael Ax" story is interesting, but purely speculative. Reports thus far suggest he was just a really messed-up kid. But this obsessive drive to bring every tragedy back to the GWOT is really getting ugly.