Why Cover Coffee When They Made Tea? FOX News Knocks Coffee Party, Promotes Tea Party

BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Jeffrey Joseph

In large part a response to the exaggerated and vitriolic presence of the Tea Party, the Coffee Party founders wanted to create a more genuine grassroots movement that showed civility in politics and an avenue for reasoned debate. Just as soon as the Coffee Party began having meetings nationwide, though, FOX covered the story as one would expect -- asking its favored Tea Party to come in and denigrate it.

The Coffee Party officially launched this past weekend and FOX felt obliged to cover it in a way only they could. Though FOX called in Michael Patrick Leahy, co-founder of the National Tea Party Coalition, to discuss the kickoff, the Coffee Party offered no representative to FOX because they "decided not to accept interviews focused on fostering ongoing political divisions in the country or provoking fights with the Tea Party." In response, Leahy summarized his group by saying, "We love the Constitution and we love America," as if wide swathes of the U.S. despised both, while also mocking the Coffee Party's objectives as "vague" and tying them to George Soros' Open Society, an allegation specifically denied by the Coffee Party.

FOX host Dave Briggs, of course, left Leahy unchallenged on his facts while the production team ran chyrons, those headlines describing the segments, making saliently "unbiased" observations, such as, "New Brew, or Sour Solution? Coffee Party Rises to Counter Tea Party Movement." Briggs also concluded his segment by comparing the civility of the Coffee Party and the Tea Party and saying, "I think Coffee might make people more fired up and less civil, but that's for another discussion." Fitting that Briggs found that an appropriate way to close his one-sided segment.

Then again, FOX has had a long history of advocating for the Tea Party. It sent out personalities Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, among others, to attend and cover Tea Party demonstrations across the nation in April of last year. No such effort went toward covering the Coffee Party this year.
FOX has hardly hidden its affection for the Tea Party recently, either. Steve Doocy today ridiculed the potential House maneuvers discussed to pass healthcare legislation while promoting a demonstration in D.C. with "thousands and thousands of, perhaps, Tea Party people who are just going to stop by their Congress person's office."

Famously biased Megyn Kelly also brought in two commentators to diminish criticism of Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, for giving her husband the appearance of a conflict of interests when she began a lobbying group connected to, of all things, the Tea Party. Kelly and her panel tried to write off the issue as partisan bluster from the left, but Peter Johnson, Jr. looked to take it a step further and labeled the criticism "sexist." Preceding his accusation, Johnson raised questions about Democratic Governor Ed Rendell and his wife's place on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and adding "other senators have had wives on district courts and U.S. circuit courts," but for some reason, only raising questions about a Tea Party activist wife of a Supreme Court justice somehow translates as sexism. To have felt compelled to present that sort of inane logic, FOX must have taken particular umbrage at criticism toward a supporter of its favorite "grassroots" movement.

Where the Coffee Party moves after its meetings this past weekend has yet to be seen. How FOX will cover any of its events in the future, though, will be no mystery. FOX read off the Coffee Party's criticism of the network as "fostering ongoing political divisions," and then FOX went ahead to prove it fit the description with its unabashedly biased coverage of the news. FOX showed that those looking for real change in the way the nation approaches politics and who really do love America may want to consider sitting down for some coffee -- and choosing to Turn Off FOX.

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Originally posted at Turn Off FOX.

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