Tinsley caught in the clutches of liberal blogosphere

Liberals sure have figured out how to use the blogosphere to their advantage.

A comment Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate Ed Tinsley made at a recent forum in Las Cruces exploded onto the national stage on Wednesday thanks to their efforts. It’s sure to come back to bite Tinsley in November.

The assault began with two liberal New Mexico blogs, Democracy for New Mexico and NMFBIHOP, posting video of Tinsley uttering these words during a candidate forum held last week in Las Cruces:

“How can I call my two nephews over there right now — one’s a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps in Anbar Province, another one in the Persian Gulf — and tell them I’m running against a guy that will cut your throat, that will cut the bottom out of your funding?” Tinsley asked.

The liberal bloggers pounced.

“What kind of person would use that kind of language about someone like Harry Teague (Tinsley’s Democratic opponent) who has been well known and well respected in the District for decades?” the Democracy for New Mexico posting asked.

“Did we find Ed Tinsley’s macaca moment?” FBIHOP asked.

From that beginning, the controversy surrounding Tinsley’s comment snowballed. The video was posted on nationally read liberal Web sites including Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and Swing State Project, and it even got a mention on the journalistic Web site The Politico.

Keith Olbermann, the left-leaning host of MSNBC’s “Countdown,” named Tinsley as Wednesday’s “worst person in the world.” During his show Olbermann answered Tinsley’s question about how he can tell his nephews that his opponent wants to cut their throats:

“I don’t know, Mr. Tinsley. Maybe the same way you can talk about how you can conjure up the image of your own kin getting their throats cut just to score points in a political campaign,” Olbermann said. “To its credit, the crowd booed so vigorously the rest of Mr. Tinsley’s exploitation of his nephews could not be heard.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to spend $1.2 million on TV advertising in the race in September and October. Who wants to bet on whether the group will use Olbermann’s quote in an ad?

A powerful movement

That ability to affect the news cycle through the Internet is an incredibly powerful aspect of the liberal movement in America that some conservatives have tried, without success, to match. The left has figured out how to use the Internet to organize and communicate. In doing so, it has created some fairly prominent Web sites. Those sites get the attention of the national media, so there’s a tunnel all the way from a sparsely attended candidate forum in Las Cruces to MSNBC.

The tunnel is controlled by liberals. Stories are usually told with a slant. Context is often left out. Video is edited.

The Tinsley situation proves that. The day before the forum, and for months before that, Teague’s Web site stated this as his position on Iraq: “I will vote to de-authorize funding for the war… and implement a plan for immediate withdrawal.” Many who have opposed stopping the funding say such cuts would put troops in harm’s way without the tools they need to ensure their survival.

At the forum, Teague admitted that his Web site had stated that he supported stopping funding for the war. He said that was a mistake that had been corrected, and he actually supports continuing to fund the war while implementing a plan to withdraw from Iraq.

That context is missing from the coverage of Tinsley’s comments. And Teague’s admission of the Web site mistake was conveniently edited out of the video that’s circulating. Nobody whose postings I read indicated that they tried to contact Tinsley for comment.

‘Nowhere to hide’

Tinsley tried — to no avail — to combat with two news releases the forces that were working against him on Wednesday. His campaign accused the Teague-friendly media outlets of “creative editing” of the video. Tinsley suggested that Teague didn’t change his Web site until after the forum, and Tinsley also said his “harsh words” may have been responsible for Teague’s shift on funding for the war — which Tinsley said would make his statement “well worth it.”

The news releases were too little, too late. The first came out minutes before Olbermann’s show aired.

Democracy for New Mexico, in a Wendesday evening follow-up post, touted the fact that it started an avalanche that, less than 24 hours later, ended up on national television.

“Zoom. From the little DFNM blog in out of the way New Mexico to the nation’s TV screens in less than 24 hours. There really is nowhere to hide in this election cycle,” the follow-up post states.

That appears to be true. The liberal blogosphere is powerful. But fair and balanced it’s not. That isn’t its goal.