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October 27, 2010
The Coffee Party Con Continues
Thomas Lifson
Remember the Coffee Party, the purportedly spontaneous groundswell of purportedly sensible Americans sickened by the purported extremism of the purportedly astroturfed tea parties? That was the narrative created around the movement sparked by former Obama campaign filmmaker Annabel Park. Liberal media, who had at first ignored the tea party phenomenon, eagerly gave flattering coverage.
Despite their best efforts, the "movement" failed to catch on. There was a poorly-attended national "convention" last month where a group of a couple of hundred "bloggers, college professors and communications strategists" convened in Louisville to commiserate over the political trend of the country. The American media have pretty much given up on coverage of the Coffee Party, embarrassed by being taken in. But the earnest organizers have managed to gull the foreign press into providing coverage. In the past couple of days, the French press agency AFP has offered a flattering portrait ("Coffee Party seeks to outbrew Tea Party in US politics"), and the normally sensible UK Telegraph was suckered ("US midterms: Coffee Party emerges to take on the Tea Party"). I suppose that this sort of press clipping helps grant-making institutions like the Open Society Institute feel they have gotten their money's worth, but it certainly won't do any good moving the American electorate.
Meanwhile, leftist foreign journalists like George Monbiot of the UK Guardian continue to flog the delusion that the tea parties are astroturf entities.
The leftist establishment media, worldwide, have lost their credibility, for good reason. The Coffee Party saga is a case study in manipulation.
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