Check out CNN’s love letter to the left leaning “Coffee Party”:
(CNN) — In one chair sits a rural retiree, his financial security shot in the slump, a humble Southerner who’s never thought much about politics. In another seat is a born Northerner, an inner-city native, a relative of a civil rights giant. And nearby, circling a table, are an economist, an artist, a onetime John McCain supporter and a long-haired guy who’s rich in Woodstock memories.
Meet these members of the Coffee Party Movement, an organically grown, freshly brewed push that’s marking its official kickoff Saturday. Across the country, even around the globe, they and other Americans in at least several hundred communities are expected to gather in coffeehouses to raise their mugs of java to something new.
They’re professionals, musicians and housewives. They’re frustrated liberal activists, disheartened conservatives and political newborns. They’re young and old, rich and poor, black, white and all shades of other.
Born on Facebook just six weeks ago, the group today boasts more than 110,000 fans. The Coffee Party is billed by many as an answer to the Tea Party (more than 1,000 fewer fans), a year-old protest movement that’s steeped in fiscal conservatism and boiling-hot, anti-tax rhetoric.
This new group calls for civility, objects to obstructionism and demands that politicians be held accountable to the people who put them in office.
Ha! They’re really comparing the “Coffee Party” which barely exists on anything other than Facebook to a nationwide movement with hundreds of thousands participants. Now just for kicks. Let’s compare that loving little piece to how CNN has treated the Tea Party.
After CNN’s senior political analyst David Gergen remarked that Republicans were “searching for their voice” after two electoral losses, Anderson Cooper lovingly remarked, “It’s hard to talk when you’re tea-bagging.”
HT Newsbusters
And then you’ve got to remember this classic CNN story about the Tea Party:
And how about this recent entry into subjective journalism by CNN labeling Tea Partiers “recession raging conservatives”:
You know, I’m not a brilliant man. But if I were giving advice to the lowest rated cable news network I’d tell them to stop cozying up to made up pretend groups that don’t have any real members and stop mocking and ridiculing millions of real Americans. Just an idea.
March 12, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Civility? If you're looking for civility it comes right behind my fist!
So, I'm planning on attending a Tea Party April 15th…And I told my husband last night that our whole family (except our oldest) can sport our homemade shirt saying "I have a big brother, I'm looking for my President". Hahahahah!
Darn, and I'm a coffee drinker by nature. Why do these low life star-buckers have to put their political claws on everything??? Argh! Oh well! Tea totalers! I'll see you on the 15th!!! Woo hoo!!!
March 12, 2010 at 5:19 pm
"Born on Facebook just six weeks ago, the group today boasts more than 110,000 fans. The Coffee Party is billed by many as an answer to the Tea Party (more than 1,000 fewer fans)"
This makes me want to join the facebook tea-party group just to spite them…
March 12, 2010 at 6:08 pm
PattyinCT seems to have anger management issues.
"The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., "Over the Teacups," 1891
March 12, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Patty – if you go to the Tea Party convention, please report back on what you see. I've never attended, but on youtube I see some pretty racist and just plain evil signs/people there. If this is propaganda, I'd like it exposed. And if there truly are people like that carrying such signs and slogans, it would probably be best to distance ourselves here.
March 12, 2010 at 6:33 pm
ER,
I think Patty should start avoiding caffeinated beverages and caffeine-related conventions altogether.
They appear to make her irritable, if not down-right violent.
March 12, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Recently I went to the Rockford, IL Tea Party which had about 200 people in attendance. Held at a restaurant (where they large quantities of coffee, and not much tea!), it was a pretty sedate event: no signs, very little yelling, and no loud swearing (and the Swedish pancakes were quite good, too!). A number of presentations regarding taxation, upcoming legislation, and economics were given(with a fine presentation on basic economic theory by a young high school lady – her work was excellent).
I don't know about other Tea Parties, but this event was quite mild. People were concerned, and some were visibly upset over the fiscal and social policies of the federal and state governments, but the people I talked to were polite. No "fist-based" civility here!
JDTB
March 12, 2010 at 10:57 pm
JDTB thanks for the insight. I think the difference here was meeting vs protest. It sounds like your meeting, especially being held indoors at a private venue where bad behavior would mean getting thrown-out is different than anything outdoors. Also, a meeting means you are there to learn and/or discuss, as opposed to get in your thoughts/sound-bites with a poster.
But I think to your point, and the point of the follow-up video here, is that there are many groups/sub-groups being drawn together here under the tea-party umbrella. And it would be unfair to be categorized by the lowest common denominator in any situation.
March 13, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Methinks the Coffee Party was deliberately manufactured by the Democratic Party or one of its minions in response to the "grass roots" Tea Party movement.
March 13, 2010 at 10:04 pm
FROM: http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/
"BIG FAIL. St. Louis Libs Hold Coffee Party – 30 People Show Up
Saturday, March 13, 2010, 12:41 PM
Jim Hoft
On Wednesday morning, 2,225 patriots turned out at the “Kill the Bill” rally in St. Charles, Missouri.
They were expecting 600…… But, 2,225 turned out."
As they saying goes, "Enough said!"
Some folks need to read more than their horoscopes or get their politcal news from others besides Olbermann, Maddow, and The View.
April 27, 2010 at 3:46 pm
" Low Life Starbucker "…THATS why if I even sort of agreed with their "positions" on the issues I would NEVER step foot on soil next to a sign toting, screaming, violence-inciting tea partier.
Our tent is bigger and we have room for the people who are having a hard time deciding what they want to protest about or with whom. Congressmen and women are meeting with us because we don't scream in their faces, spit on people or call our Government a bunch of Nazis, plain and simple. Didn't you ever hear that saying that it's may not be what you are saying but HOW you are saying it that people remember ?
Big Fail ? IDTS…Aparently you don't watch the news at all because we are growing so large that we are forming boards with bylaws all across this country, unlike the unorganized mess that you are. that is important if you want people to take you seriously. we don't get our political views from anyone but ourselves, unlike the TP who swallows whatever Murdoch, Koch, Armey and Fox makes them. I am an intelligent, well-read, hard-working, self-supporting humanitarian who can form my own opinion from what i see, hear and read. I just happen to love green tea as a beverage but for my sanity and for my 3 kids FUTURES, I love a great cup of coffee…because I don't want NeoCons, Christian Conservatives or Fascists in charge of our lives ever again
We catch a lot more flies with honey than they do with vinegar.