Poor Chris Mooney. The Discover magazine blogger had just started a series of posts on how to effectively communicate the dangers posed by rising greenhouse gas levels leading to global warming, when the 10:10.org video (officially called Splattergate now) hit on Friday.

Only Mooney isn’t just the victim of bad timing, but also his own poor judgment, as he chose to begin his series with a lengthy video with Lawrence Livermore Lab Alarmist Ben Santer — you know, the Climategate bloke who wanted to “beat the crap out of” former Virginia state climatologist (and global warming realist) Pat Michaels.

The challenge, Mooney says, facing alarmists in advancing their message is that their audience is broken up into (paging John Edwards!) six Americas.

Little did he know that his cohorts in climate alarmism needed a remedial class in public relations. Lesson 1: Do not portray the detonation of schoolchildren into bloody bits to get your message across!