David Kuo has a blunt midterm election message for conservative Christians who support President Bush because they believe he's a godly man.

You're being used.

Kuo, a former leader for the religious right who worked at the White House, says the Bush administration deceived and privately ridiculed conservative Christian leaders. In his book "Tempting Faith" (Free Press, $25), he describes an administration that publicly preached compassionate conservatism but regarded the poor with indifference once the cameras stopped rolling.

Kuo is asking Christians to take a two-year "fast" from politics to rise above partisanship.

"Christians need to understand that Bush isn't the head of the church of America — he's the head of the United States of America," Kuo said in a telephone interview as part of his book tour.

"Having a godly man in the White House is obviously important for Christians, but I want them to understand something. You are viewed with coldly political eyes by this White House."

White House spokesman Tony Snow says, however, that Kuo didn't share those sentiments when he stopped working at the White House. Snow said Kuo wrote a warm letter to Bush saying that it was the president's "unwavering" support of his faith-based programs that made all the difference.

Tell-all books from former White House officials are nothing new, but this story arises from an unlikely source. Kuo is the former deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Kuo calls Ronald Reagan his childhood hero, says he "hated" Bill Clinton and is a proud descendant of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.

"I'm a child of the South," he said. "I grew up on cornbread and grits."

Kuo even has some Georgia ties. His mother, Marilyn Dunlap, once spent her summers living at Koinonia, an interracial Christian community established in southeast Georgia during segregation. And he once lived in Midtown and Sandy Springs.

Kuo's book has angered some Christian conservative leaders. Some said he was allowing himself to be used by liberal media to suppress midterm voter turnout. Others implied he was a Judas who would no longer have any friends.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, disagreed with Kuo's assertion that the Bush administration had only delivered "trinkets" — token gestures — to Christian conservatives.

"[I'd] hardly call Justice Roberts or Alito a trinket, or the hundreds of federal and appellate court justices who have been sterling nominees," Land said.

But Kuo, who is the Washington editor of the Beliefnet Web site, an online interfaith magazine, said the reaction he's received from people has been "wonderful." Most say they share his opinions.

His descriptions of White House officials deriding Christian leaders has received the most press. He tells one story about Bush, while waiting to meet a group of black conservative pastors at the White House, grumbling that "all these guys care about is money." He also wrote that White House officials describe Christian conservatives as "goofy" and "out-of-control."

He said he believes that Bush's personal faith is sincere, but his instincts as a politician trumped his willingness to fund his beliefs.

"At the end of the day, the faith-based initiatives were not at the front of his mind, but it's at the top of his heart," Kuo said. "He feels a lot about it, but it's not just high priority policy-wise."

Kuo had no prediction for Tuesday's results, only that Bush would retain the support of his Christian conservative base.

"My gut tells me that they're going to turn out because their passion is so great and their hearts are longing to do the right thing," Kuo said of Christian conservatives. "But it breaks my heart in a way because these people are being used."