A DIFFERENT WAY TO ASK THE QUESTION

I noted below that a veteran reporter implicitly wondered why we give the bullshitters so much attention instead of pointing out how foolish they are.  Another good case is this Dennis Prager remark at CPAC:

Unlike Europeans of the Enlightenment era — and unlike the Left today — the Founders understood that people are not basically good. That is a defining belief of Judaism as well as of Christianity. Therefore, to be good, the great majority of people need moral religion and belief in accountability to a morally judging God.

If we take Voltaire as a legitimate representative of the European Enlightenment, it's clear that Prager is WRONG:

For Voltaire, those equipped to understand their own reason could find the proper course of free action themselves. But since many were incapable of such self-knowledge and self-control, religion, he claimed, was a necessary guarantor of social order.