Whatever the wisdom of Pamela Geller’s Mohammed cartoon event in Garland, Texas — and there’s much not to like about it, as Chronicles executive editor, Scott Richert, wrote of Charlie Hebdo’s repulsive fare after the massacre at the magazine’s office — one thing ought not be forgotten: No matter what kind of event Geller had sponsored (perhaps, say, a dispassionate exegesis of the Koran) the media would have attacked her as a Muslim hater, and cited the usual source for the claim: the vile and discredited Southern Poverty Law Center.

SPLC says that Geller is an “anti-Muslim extremist.” She is part of the dreaded “Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.” That claim is unsurprising. But the media dutifully repeated it, the SPLC’s worthless credentials regardless.

Consider this from The Washington Post:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks hate groups, keeps a dossier on her in its “extremist files,” calling her “the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead.”

Reuters, The New York Daily News, and myriad other news organizations repeated the SPLC’s claim that Geller’s organization, American Freedom Defense Initiative, is a “hate group.”

That the media continue citing this despicable organization as a credible source, or one with any authority to judge anyone, suggests that they are more dishonest than the SPLC.