Ad Campaign Likens Humane Society Chief to Criminal Bernie Madoff

In its campaign against the Humane Society of the United States, the nonprofit advocacy network built by the public-relations executive Richard Berman has sponsored an ad in which the Humane Society’s president is compared to the disgraced investment adviser Bernard Madoff, writes the Boston Globe in part of a series examining “politics in an age of paralysis.”

The Globe says the recent online ad campaign by Mr. Berman’s Center for Consumer Freedom that seeks to discredit the Humane Society’s president, Wayne Pacelle, “provides a case study of what critics say is an industry of distortion in Washington.” The Humane Society contends that the center is a front for the agriculture and food industries, which oppose the organization’s efforts to improve living conditions for farm animals.

Neither Mr. Berman nor other executives of his for-profit firm, Berman and Company, based in Washington, D.C., would comment for the article. It looks at tactics his advocacy groups uses to frame public debate on issues such as animal rights, obesity, and drunken driving and the growth of efforts by many advocacy groups to influence policy by attacking the credibility of opponents.

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article on the long-running battle between the Humane Society and the Center for Consumer Freedom.