Hale's reach

There's been an extraordinary amount of bad journalism surrounding Matt Hale's arrest.

Some facts: It is untrue that the World Church of the Creator has "thousands" of members. It is not true that the organization is "rapidly growing." And it is certainly not true that, as Nicholas Kristof recently described it in the New York Times, Hale is "the face of hate" for America.

The truth is that WCOTC has been headed for the dumpster for the past two years.

Here are two pieces that give a more realistic assessment:

Fuhrer's little flock has seen better days [sidebar]

His World Church of the Creator "has been crumbling beneath him for the last year and a half,'' said Devin Burghart, who monitors hate groups for the Oak Park-based group Center for New Community.

Members of Hale's church, now numbering less than 200 by Burghart's estimate, feel that Hale has been preoccupied with winning a fight to obtain a law license and clumsily embroiled in a trademark dispute. "The organization is in chaos,'' said Burghart, with schisms forming and other white-supremacist groups skimming off Hale's followers.

Racist Accused of Plot on Judge

"This may well spell the end of the World Church of the Creator," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "This group has been on the ropes for a year. They have had two major splits. They lost the right to use their name....

"I spend every day looking at people like Matt Hale," Potok continued. "I have rarely, if ever, found anybody quite so vile as Matt Hale. He's gotten away with many things up until now. Perhaps never again."