It begs the question, what type of cult is it though? A benign one, or more like North Korea or Jim Jones'? NY Times - Obama Supporters Take His Middle Name as Their Own

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.

"Emily Hussein Nordling," her entry now reads.

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name. 

What is a cult? Steven Ala Hassan came up with his own BITE Model (I usually do not like to rely on Wikipedia, due to the reliable information in many articles, but, this one is pretty good, based on real information. You can also find the deep dive information at Hassan's webpage)

1. Behavior Control
2. Information Control
3. Thought Control
4. Emotional Control

Well, Obamacons obviously have little emotional control of their own, but, that is not the point of #4, of course. Think of the emotional control Obama has over his crowd at rallies. People faint. They sing out "you tell it, preacher!" They yell out "Amen." They weep, they cry, they look at Barack Hussein Obama as a Messiah.

I'm sure everyone who is paying attention can come up with their own rememberences of he first three, as well. For behavior control, he now has people taking his middle name as their own. He gets millions of rubes to act as if they are at a tent revival at his speeches. He gets them to write even more petitions, and to unburden their true thoughts at his MyBarack(hussein)Obama.com webpage.

Information Control. What better example is there then the Fight The Smears website? Oh, wait, I got one: the way that all the Obamacons mimick the theme that anything that Obama does not want to discuss is a "distraction from the real issues."

Thought Control: the model defines this as

Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth"

a. Map = Reality
b. Black and White thinking
c. Good vs. evil
d. Us vs. them (inside vs. outside)

'Nuff said on that subject.

Of course, the way liberals/progressives have been moving for decades, forming a true Cult of BHO is not that much of a stretch. Just one little step over the line.

BTW, that graphic above, which many of you might have seen, has been called "cultish" before, along with many of the creepy graphics that both the Obama campaign and his supporters have come up with.

Sweetness and Light looks at the Daily Kosbat reference in the Times story.

The Moderate Voice loves the symbolic effort of changing ones name. Interestingly, Ann Althouse wonders if trying to show how little meaning the name "Hussein" has, that the Obamacons are actually highlighting it as a dirty word.

Last thought: this is more like the social model, where "the cult is formed through a social implosion, in which cult members dramatically reduce the intensity of their emotional bonds with non-cult members, and dramatically increase the intensity of those bonds with fellow cult members - this emotionally intense situation naturally encourages the formation of a shared belief system and rituals."

What are your favorite Obamacon cult references?

Crossed at Pirate's Cove and McCain Blogs