I agree that the moveon accusations were ridiculous, and I've been agreeing with GG's posts and the ADL's clear refusal to answer his questions directly. But in the spirit of making up my own mind on the question of ADL political bias, I went to their website to see whether I could discern a systematic neocon bias in their press releases, since the press releases seem like the most public "action" that the ADL takes.

From here http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Breaking_News.htm you can find the recent ones, and at the bottom of the page they have them broken down into categories. So I went and looked at some categories, mainly focussing on domestic ones, since internationally, they seem to spend most of their time defending Israel (and, recently, attacking Iran). Strictly in terms of media figures, I could see recent attacks on Mel Gibson, Glenn Beck, Don Imus, MoveOn, and a recent WFNY shock-jock routine. Four of these, of course, are right-wingers, and one a left-winger.

I then went and looked at what they have been up to in other domestic categories. I did find a recent attack on a Democratic congressman for making a reichstag/911 comparison. But click through to look at the rest of the releases in the discrimination (http://www.adl.org/PresRele/DiRaB_41/default.htm), civil rights (http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/default.htm), or supreme court (http://www.adl.org/PresRele/SupremeCourt_33/default.htm) categories. Most of that stuff is standard, even heartening, leftist fare, although mainly sticking to issues of race and immigration. Their international stuff fits the neocon agenda, but domestically, they seem pretty good overall. Domestic-related terrorism issues are a interesting mix: in favor of increased anti-terrorism power, but also defending the rights of the Guantanamo prisoners.

None of this means they aren't biased towards Murdoch et al, just that no one entirely in the pocket of the right would take so many liberal stands over the last few years. I came into this with a definite anti-ADL bias, but now I'm interested in how they mix left and right. That doesn't change the fact that, according to their own principles, there's a lot more talk on the right that deserves their condemnation that, for whatever reason, they remain silent on; nor does it change the fact that, were figures on the left to use such language, the ADL might attack them without hesitation. But in terms of the ADL's overall reputation, domestically at least, they say a lot of good stuff. Basically, I guess, they should just drop the "inappropriate use of Nazi metaphor" category, since it seems way too easy to apply, and thus too easy to apply with bias.

Whether GG realizes it yet or not, it sounds like this is shaping up to be the first major clash between the left (plus the libertarians, apparently) and Obama-the-nominee. If he's throwing his support behind Barrow, that's going to cause some serious strife as this mini-campaign of GG's gets going. Could GG or someone of his stature call up the Obama campaign and ask them directly what the heck they think they are doing? Getting them to explicitly defend their support might mitigate it, or at least generate some (admittedly, unpleasant) press.

For a bit more indication of the looming conflict between Obama and the left on this, see:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;?diaryId=6448

I don't know the facts about who Holder defended beyond what I have read here, but I do believe there is an ethical difference between choosing to become a lawyer the bulk of whose time is spent defending corporations, and choosing to become, say, a public defender (who make up a large portion of those "defending" the prisoners in Guantanamo). I suppose corporations have some sort of right to defense in the way that people do (though I don't think such rights are properly comparable) but I think it matters in judging a person who they choose to systemically defend and for what reasons. Public defenders, in my experience, defend out of a deeply felt belief that, although most of their clients may in fact be guilty of their accused crime, their treatment by the state and the likely degree of punishment is deeply unjust. Corporate lawyers I've known present no such moral justifications for their jobs, and usually do it just as part of a self-interested career. Few seem to believe that their clients are systematically prevented from getting a fair shake, regardless of what they have or haven't done. So in short, yes, I believe that there is a difference between choosing to spend one's life defending the under-class versus defending the over-class (such as corporations). But again, this isn't to say that the corporations might not in some sense deserve representation -- only that I don't have to like the people who choose, of all the things they could do with their law degrees, to spend their time on that. And nor is it to say that Holder made such a choice himself: for all I know, defending an evil corporation like Chiquita (and they really are pretty damn bad) was a one-off -- in which case, it's (mostly) ok.