Despite the evidence Kuo presents in Tempting Faith, liberals simply don’t believe him. They’ve spent so much time fear-mongering about American theocracy that a book illustrating the opposite simply makes no sense to them. In fact, the real revelation of Kuo’s book is not that the Bushies don’t care about evangelicals; it’s that liberals are too wedded to their views to capitalize on it. ~Amy Sullivan

Yes, if you’ve drunk deep at the well of Michelle Goldberg and Damon Linker, and accepted the notion that the GOP is held hostage by religious conservatives, it would be hard to acknowledge the duplicity of the party that jumps out at a fair number of religious conservatives themselves.  But it is neither convenient nor flattering to think that secular people just like themselves can fashion policies they loathe so much; no, it must be the mythical irrational, Bible-beating yahoos that they already despise who are also the source of their political defeats and the cause of the policies they oppose.  Saying, “Die Christen sind unser Unglueck” is so much more appealing than confronting an adversary who is in so many ways like you and who shares many more of your fundamental values than you might be willing to admit.