About the White House regarding certain social-conservative leaders as “kooks”: Well, truth is an ultimate defense, isn’t it? The social Right is not exactly a kook-free zone. No political coalition is, for that matter, and the employees of any White House (as Jonah pointed out earlier) are going to have to have good relations with a few people they may privately dislike. There have been Republican offices and administrations with a generalized disdain for social conservatives, but my sense is that that kind of attitude has waned a lot. Social conservatives have been integrated into the Republican party pretty thoroughly by now.