Steve Tuttle

Newsweek Writer Claims 200,000 Coffee Party Members
By P.J. Gladnick | April 24, 2010 | 7:34 PM EDT

Does anyone out there remember the Coffee Parties?

You can be forgiven if you have forgotten them. They made a brief appearance due to media driven hype over a month ago and then quickly disappeared from view when they inspired a collective yawn from the public. The photo at right shows a typical Coffee Party "rally" from back then. Typical in that few people showed up to protest against private ownership (aka free enterprise). Even the organizer of the Coffee Party non-movement, Annabel Park, seems to have lost her enthusiasm for the cause as evidenced by her Twitter page. After an initial flurry of posts, Park's interest pretty much petered out as you can see.

However, despite the utter failure of the liberal Coffee Parties to counter the popular Tea Parties, the MSM continues to hype them to the point of absolute absurdity.  And the latest entry in this category comes from Steve Tuttle of Newsweek with his claim that the Coffee Party now has 200,000 members and that they had 500 meetings one day recently.

Here is Tuttle in the midst of extreme hype mode. Please be prepared to have your BS meters fly off the scale while reading:

Newsweek: Living Like it's 1899
By Warner Todd Huston | March 16, 2009 | 10:25 AM EDT

Newsweek has some prescriptions to save us all. We should live like it's 1899 instead of 2009. Don't use a dryer for your clothes, chop your own wood for heating fuel, buy a black and white TV because it's "just as good," and don't get the Internet or cable TV. Sheese, talk about a kill-joy!

Of course, the piece by Steve Tuttle isn't all stone-ageie, new-ageiness. Some of the points Tuttle makes are sensible enough -- not buying what you can't afford being the most salient. But, Tuttle's harkening back to his parent's depression era scrimping is a bit much and makes a mockery of the sensible suggestions he does make.

Naturally, a Newsweek piece isn't complete unless it has some gratuitous (and in this case off base) Obamaisms as homage to the brilliance of The One. In this case, Tuttle invokes Obama's exhortation for us all to engage in a little "personal sacrifice."