David Holthouse, admitted libeler on behalf of SPLC, works his fact-challenged "reportage" again.

A deep genuflection and tip of the boonie hat to Irregular Sean for directing me to this NC Guns blog post which led to Say Uncle's "Reporter goes to SHOT. Poops pants," which led to David Holthouse's latest smear, "Overkill - Our correspondent is blown away at the largest gun show in the U.S."

Experienced readers of Sipsey Street will recall that I have dealt with the subject of this serial libeler before here: "Meet David Holthouse, premier paid liar at the Southern Preposterous Lie Center."

That article mentioned that Holthouse and SPLC were being sued for libel by historian Guenter Lewy.

Well, lo and behold, SPLC and Holthouse apologized to Lewy and paid him some money to go away.

In an event that I missed at the time, Armenian Cafe.com reported that:

Southern Poverty Law Center Apologizes To Professor Guenter Lewy Over Armenian Genocide Charge

Washington -- The storied Southern Poverty Law Center has agreed to formally apologize to a scholar it accused of being a Turkish agent because of his views on the long-ago slaughter of Armenians.

The public apology by the civil rights group ends a multimillion-dollar libel lawsuit filed by historian Guenter Lewy, author of the book "The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide." The settlement does not, however, end a debate that still entangles lawmakers from regions with large Armenian-American populations. . .

"I think it was a long time coming," Lewy said of the lawsuit settlement in an interview Wednesday. "It not only clears me of these malicious charges, it's a victory for free inquiry."

The settlement of the 2-year-old lawsuit includes a confidential financial payment to Lewy as well as a three-paragraph apology and retraction that the Southern Poverty Law Center will be making public within a week. (Emphasis supplied, MBV)

Lewy initially asked for $8 million from the law center.

In its negotiated statement, the Alabama-based group said it "misunderstood" Lewy's scholarship and admitted it was "wrong to assume that any scholar who challenges the Armenian genocide narrative necessarily has been financially compromised by the government of Turkey."

The organization further stated that it was "wrong to assert" that Lewy was part of a genocide-denying network financed by Turkey.

A spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center could not be reached to comment Wednesday.

No doubt.

The retraction and apology says:

In the summer 2008 issue of its Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Guenter Lewy, a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, was part of a network of persons, ?nanced by the Government of Turkey, who dispute that the tragic events of World War I constituted an Armenian genocide. We now realize that we misunderstood Professor Lewy's scholarship, were wrong to assert that he was part of a network ?nanced by the Turkish Government, and were wrong to assume that any scholar who challenges the Armenian genocide narrative necessarily has been ?nancially compromised by the Government of Turkey. We hereby retract the assertion that Professor Lewy was or is on the Government of Turkey's payroll.

To our knowledge, Professor Lewy has never sought to deny or minimize the deaths of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey; nor has he sought to minimize the Ottoman regime's grievous wartime miscalculations or indifference to human misery in a con?ict earmarked by widespread civilian suffering on all sides. What he has argued in his book, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, and elsewhere is that the present historical record does not substantiate a premeditated plan by the Ottoman regime to destroy because of ethnicity, religion ,or nationality, as opposed to deport for political-military reasons, the Armenian population. In this view, he is joined by such distinguished scholars as Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University. As additional troves of archival information come to light, Professor Lewy advocates greater study of this contentious subject. We deeply regret our errors and offer our sincerest apologies to Professor Lewy.

So much for Holthouse's and SPLC's "scholarship."

I wonder how much Lewy soaked old Morris the Molester Dees for on this one?

Plaintiff attorney's take note: SPLC CAN be had.