The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) apparently realized its primary goal, fundraising, was in danger by its placing of Dr. Ben Carson on its “Extremist File” list. But the apology it has issued is the least convincing pretense of remorse that I have ever seen. Our of 1248 words in the document, only 52 -- 4.1667% -- are an actual apology:

In October 2014, we posted an “Extremist File” of Dr. Ben Carson. This week, as we've come under intense criticism for doing so, we've reviewed our profile and have concluded that it did not meet our standards, so we have taken it down and apologize to Dr. Carson for having posted it.

The rest of the document goes on to chronicle all the things the SPLC doesn’t like about Dr. Carson. There is not a single word of explanation of how the apology-worthy mistake was made, nor any reflection on how the criteria used for including on the list will be tightened or even reviewed.

The document is merely a device to try to make the controversy go away, and let the fundraising continue.

William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, who discovered the listing and sparked an international  controversy can justifiably take a bow.  The SPLC has over $300 million dollars in assets, including Cayman Islands bank accounts, raises tens of millions of dollars annually (42 million in 2013) and pays its leaders six figure salaries (President Richard Cohen and Chief Counsel Morris Dees both received over $300,000 in 2013).

The website Watching the Watchdogs has examined the SPLC’s fundraising practices and discovered that millions of dollars annually flow into the hands of telemarketers.

 third-party telemarketers raised $5,156,337 toward the SPLC’s worthy goal of “fighting hate” in America.

The Bad News: The SPLC actually paid $5,750,295 to the telemarketers over those three years, for a net loss of $593,958 donor-dollars!

One telemarketing firm, Grassroots Campaigns, of Boston, charged Mr. Dees an incredible $3,883,469 to raise $1,644,804, for an astonishing loss of $2,238,665.

The loss leader operations evidently function to identify marks for future fundraising efforts. I wonder if the donors realize that they are finding not the worthy goals they are told about, but merelyt a machine for raising more money from them?