Liberal Democrats are opposed to religion in politics, except when they're for it. "We need to kick the money changers out of the temple and restore moral values to America," Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean told a group of Democrats in Naples, Fla., "drawing roars from the crowd," according to the St. Petersburg Times, which doesn't say if they were roars of enthusiasm or of laughter.

Jesse Jackson writes a tiresome column every week for the Chicago Sun-Times, and this week he carps about the unfairness of confirming judges by minority vote:

Senate Democrats have confirmed too many of Bush's activist nominees--they've held up only 10 of the most extreme while confirming more than 200. But even this restraint has led the radical right to call it an ''attack on faith.'' Their arrogance violates the spirit of our Constitution, and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

How come when conservatives talk about "moral values" and "the teachings of Jesus Christ," it's a sign of incipient theocracy, but no one, including conservatives, seems to mind when leftos like Dean and Jackson do? Probably for the same reason no one cares when Democrats question Republicans' patriotism--because, as we wrote last year, "it has some mild shock value but carries no real sting, like a child trying out a naughty word he's just learned."

No one, least of all liberals themselves, thinks liberals are serious about either patriotism or religion. That's why a liberal--even a liberal "reverend"--can thump the Bible till he's blue in the face and the response is either indifference or mockery.