You've heard it, I'm sure, from your friends who support Hillary Clinton, and even from some of the most prominent figures of the mainstream media -- Joe Klein, Jake Tapper, David Brooks, etc. Supporters of Sen. Barack Obama are like a "cult" in their exuberant zeal for this "messianic" figure who promises little more than "hope" and "change." They're "creepy," they stage episodes of fainting, and they're getting ready to name their firstborn "Barack," regardless of gender.

As an Obama supporter, I took offense at these comments when they were first made, as I do now. I tend to view it as a reactionary response by old-media types who view politics through the lens of the campaigns they've covered in the past -- establishment candidates, and supporters who tend to be closer to 50 than 30. Now they see this new political figure with hoards of enthusiastic supporters who are wholly new to the process and they say to themselves: "This isn't how it's supposed to be."

But I've begun thinking about the word "cult" and its application to the 2008 Democratic primary, and it seems to me that if this silly slur is going to be bandied about, it should be directed at the campaign whose supporters act in the more cult-like manner – those of Sen. Clinton.

When I think “cult,” I think of an assemblage of people unified in their in slavish devotion to a single authority figure. Their devotion to this figure is such that it refuses to diminish or even waver, even when this figure acts in such a way that benefits themselves at the expense of their following, or is glaringly inconsistent in their rhetoric.

How then, can one not start to view some of Hillary’s die-hard supporters in a “cult”-like fashion, given that the Clinton campaign has adopted a strategy of securing the nomination by irreparably damaging the likely nominee, and thereby decreasing the chances that a Democrat will win the White House?

How can they not be viewed as cultish after regurgitating the Clinton campaign’s increasingly absurd exercises in Orwellian doublethink? “Obama is not ready to be commander-in-chief, but he’d be a fine VP!”; “We completely disagree with Ms. Ferraro’s unfortunate comments, but how dare Sen. Obama play the race card!”; “Momentum doesn’t matter, it’s all about delegates, which don’t matter because we’ve got the momentum, which is irrelevant because nobody can win without superdelegates, who should follow the will of the voters in their states but feel free to overturn the will of the people as express in elected delegates, which don’t matter.”

That’s not to say that the supporters of Sen. Clinton are a “cult” right and proper. But if you’re going to use the word, just be sure to use it in the way that’s the least wrong.