Joel J. Sprayregen – American Thinker
The realization that political debate in a free society is often raucous accompanied my journey from work as an ACLU staff attorney to becoming National Vice-Chair of the then-respected Anti-Defamation League. This journey was inspired in significant part by “refuseniks” — met during an ACLU “mission” to the USSR — who were consigned to the Gulag because there was no First Amendment to protect them. You can thus understand the consternation, and not just mine, which greeted the ADL’s hyped “Report” declaring that “rage” expressed against President Obama is un-American. These tidbits reveal the flavor of ADL’s declaration: “Since the election of Barack Obama, a current of anti-government hostility has swept across the U.S. (creating) a climate of toxic rage (characterized by) shared belief that Obama poses a threat to the future of the U.S. (with) an intense strain of anti-government distrust and anger.” ADL’s perfervidly purple prose belies an abysmal ignorance of American political traditions. Thomas Jefferson — savaged by the press in his day — believed that the purpose of the press (which he said was more important than government) is to express distrust of officialdom. … More fundamentally, the ADL misses the significance of supine pro-Obama bias in most of the media, who clearly felt that shiver running up their legs. Dan Rather insisted on his right to smear Bush with false documents! The ADL is not troubled by the partisanship of MS-NBC. It is scandalous, for example, that the press has not uncovered what Obama wrote and read while in law school and college, and that they have minimized the influence of Obama’s (“G-d damn America”) rageful pastor. The failure of mainline media to scrutinize Obama and his mentors — which truly is unprecedented (one of Obama’s favorite words when describing his own policies) in American history — incentivizes many who love this country to sound off. … Sadly, there are explanations more embarrassing than ignorance of history (steeped in supercilious New York political bias) to explain why the ADL stumbled so egregiously. As observed by many, including myself, who have left the organization, the ADL has declined into an autocracy where no opinion counts other than that of its long-time National Director, Abraham Foxman, whom the New York Times described as “a one-man Sanhedrin for life.” When Foxman hatches a crackpot idea like the “Rage Report,” no one can restrain him.”
