On drinking the Kool-Aid

It is probably unscientific to draw conclusions from my hate mail but here goes anyway. In reaction to my column this morning, I received at least two notes that accused me of "drinking the Obama Kool-Aid."

Even allowing for the fact that right-wing writers often sound exactly the same, and frequently cite the same obsessions as if getting their instructions directly from the High Altar of Rush Limbaugh, and moreover give the strong impression that if they had an original thought it would rattle around their heads like a stone in a can, it still strikes me as remarkable that "Kool-Aid" should be mentioned by two of these characters on the same morning.

You see, in my experience, the metaphor "Kool-Aid" was until very recently reserved for fighting liberals who criticized conservatives - as in the classic phrase, "He has drunk the Bush Kool-Aid" or the "Rush Limbaugh Kool-Aid" - both of which require a strong stomach.

Until now I have been unfamiliar with the Obama Kool-Aid or any variation thereof concerning Democrats, but perhaps I have lived a sheltered life. The metaphor itself is said to derive from the mass suicide of the deluded faithful in Jonestown in 1978 - so it's not the most tasteful suggestion.

The irony is that both the guys who said I was a Kool-Aid drinker had not only drunk it themselves, but had fallen in the vat and drunk themselves to dry land.

But am I right? Has Kool-Aid become an equal opportunity fruit drink only recently? Has it just penetrated the dense consciousness of the right because those folks are slow on the uptake? Or has it always been imbibed by cranks of all political colorations?

I have questions. I am hoping somebody out there has answers.