True. I apologize for the straw man.
But still, are you very familiar with the structure and effectiveness of grassroots organizing? I do - I work in the field. To defend the tea parties and ridicule the coffee parties is hypocritical.
I mean, pick one or the other. Defend them both - or ridicule them both. Don't make false distinctions between the two to justify hypocrisy.
I started participating early on in my local Tea Party, so I'm pretty familiar with how that has worked. I'll contrast that with the coalition of the Obama Campaign-Administration, Moveon.org, ACORN, and Organizing for America. The Tea Partiers are nothing like the Obama umbrella. Perhaps the Coffee Party is not part of the umbrella org, but the background of the founder indicates otherwise, imo.
You see, the problem here is that "The Obama Umbrella" is a meaningless term. How do you define that? Are you one of the conspiracy nuts who believe that MoveOn and ACORN (which, by the way, doesn't exist anymore - you cons won, and now thousands of low-income families will suffer for it) are "controlled" by the White House?