But even journalists who criticize the SPLC for these smears have praised its tracking of real hate groups and reporting of hate incidents. The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel told me in March that he appreciates the SPLC’s tracking and profiling of extremist groups and uses the center’s website as a reference to gauge the prevalence or impact of extremist groups he runs across when researching stories.

Well, Dave Weigel is a lazy moron. The SPLC has been exposed by the Left (they are, after all, their primary victims) for decades now as an outfit of out-and-out con artists preying on the naïveté of progressive donors. It's not something where "they do good work, but often go too far," like the Greenblatt-led nu-ADL or something. Absolutely none of their information is trustworthy. It is nothing more than a tool to them for separating progs from their cash. (As is, for that matter, the laziness of journalists.) It--and they--are rotten to the core. This is not some sort of obscure scoop we are talking about.