I was alive when Jonestown went down - a very horrible thing. I seem to remember that the Kool-Aid company made a half-hearted effort to correct the record, because Jim Jones didn't in fact use Kool-Aid© brand but some generic grape powdered drink. Obviously that didn't work. But the point still seems to me to be the same: drinking the Kool-Aid means demonstrating your loyalty to a mad leader even at the cost of your own life. While the world was trying to understand what had happened in Jonestown, the question we all were asking was: why did they simply follow the orders and drink the Kool-Aid, even feeding it to their children, when they could see all around themselves the terrible consequences? In its literal form it's a question for social psychologists or theologians, I suppose. But as a metaphor for the self-destructive behavior of the Bush supporter over the last 8 years, "drinking the Kool-Aid" is perhaps tasteless, and by now a thoughtless cliche, but when it first showed up some years ago, it captured exactly the same mystery that the literal meaning had back then: how can people be so unremittingly blind to their own interests and the interests of people they love? How can the need for authority be so strong? Is there no natural boundary at which a mad world-view is forced back into congruence with real existence? So I would say, I don't often use the phrase because it's a cliche, but if I use it, it means exactly what I think it means.

I do take your point; I didn't want to suggest that "drinking the Kool-Aid" isn't often misused. And there have to be other, fresher ways to convey the idea of blind authoritarianism. And since I don't disagree with any of the political characterizations you've expressed, I would hate to have left the impression of trying to rebut you. I share entirely your sense that we should think before we speak, and that we should hold other speakers to that standard. And in particular, I'm quite ready to retire the "drinking the Kool-Aid" cliche. So I guess I end up pretty much where you do. It's odd to think that in terms of personal integrity, Jim Jones outshines Rush Limbaugh, but there it is.