The ADL and Rush Limbaugh

Last Friday, the Anti-Defamation League put out a press release criticizing Rush Limbaugh for comparing Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic health care plan to the Nazi. (For examples, just look at this Media Matters compilation of Limbaugh’s Nazi analogies)

In the release, Executive Director Abe Foxman called Limbaugh’s comments "outrageous, deeply offensive and inappropriate.” Excellent. That’s what the ADL needed to do. So what’s the problem?

Well, The ADL’s release came almost a day after Limbaugh’s commentary had become a focal point of the health care debate, even prompting White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to comment on it. By the time the ADL had released its statement it had already been taken to task by Adam Serwer of The American Prospect’s TAPPED blog, who said, “[T]here's a part of this that really bothers me, and that's the silence of Abraham Foxman, who has repeatedly thrown himself into the fray to advance right wing interests in his role as head of the Anti-Defamation League.”

Question abound.

First, does the ADL deserve the criticism for “throwing itself into the fray to advance right-wing interests?” Well, in this case, the ADL deserves criticsm that they get. What irritates progressives is that when, in 2004, Moveon.org sponsored a contest that asked activist to put together an ad about then President George W. Bush, and a couple of them submitted ads comparing Bush to Nazis, Foxman was quick to issue a press release condemning Moveon.org, asserting that Moveon “made an irresponsible decision that has given legitimacy to the exploitative manipulation of images in a campaign season.” So when a random guy on the internet enters a contest by submitting an ad that makes Nazi analogies Foxman makes a stronger statement more quickly then when the most prominent right-wing talk show host in America compares the President of the United States to a Nazi

Does it matter? Absolutely. On inappropriate uses of the Nazi analogies, the ADL is the first place many people look. When they are slow to condemn a really prominent example, it might appear that factors other diminishing the meaning of the Holocaust is in play. It might, in fact, look as though the ADL was more willing to criticize progressive than conservatives.

So why does that matter? It matter a lot because the ADL still does the best work of any group of identifying and push back on anti-Semitism and other types of hatred. It is particularly important because the ADL had been particularly vigilant in pointing out when criticism of Israel bleeds into straight up anti-Jewish bias. Unfortunately, this is, at the moment, a greater affliction of the left then of the right (the right has its own particular problems with Jews). But because of the ADL’s softness on the right, progressives trust the ADL less and less on the issues on which they are correct. That is why it’s problematic. The ADL needs to criticize the right because otherwise, important criticism of the left goes unheeded.