Romney grabs huge lead in Iowa in new poll. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Sunday Roundup.

Less than a week after Jerry Falwell’s death, Newt Gingrich appeared at Falwell’s college, Liberty University, to address to the school’s 2007 graduating class. The former House Speaker and likely presidential candidate denounced the “growing culture of radical secularism.”

In a speech heavy with religious allusions but devoid of hints about his presidential ambitions, Gingrich drew applause from the graduates and their families in the school’s 12,000-seat football stadium when he demanded: “This anti-religious bias must end.”

“In hostility to American history, the radical secularists insist that religious belief is inherently divisive,” Gingrich said, deriding what he called the “contorted logic” and “false principles” of advocates of secularism in American society.

“Basic fairness demands that religious beliefs deserve a chance to be heard,” he said during his 26-minute speech. “It is wrong to single out those who believe in God for discrimination. Yet, today, it is impossible to miss the discrimination against religious believers.”

Impossible to miss? It can’t be that impossible; I have no idea what on earth he’s talking about. Religious beliefs don’t have a chance to be heard? Since when?

I’m hard pressed to imagine what country Gingrich and the 12,000 people who applauded his worldview are living in. Out of the 535 members of Congress, 50 governors, the president, vice president, the Bush cabinet, and nine Supreme Court justices, there is exactly one person — not one percent, just one guy — who does not profess a faith in God. If polls are to be believed, less than 5% of the population describes themselves as non-believers.

In the last presidential election, one candidate announced during a presidential debate, “My faith affects everything that I do, in truth…. I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith.” This was John Kerry, the more secular candidate of the two.

As for “discrimination,” the New York Times had an interesting report last week showing that so much public money is now going to ministries, religious groups are hiring lobbyists to get more.

In our culture, religion is common in the media — I can’t remember the last month Time and/or Newsweek didn’t feature religion as a cover story — almost exclusively in a positive light. In sporting events, celebrating athletes routinely express their religiosity. At awards ceremonies, entertainers routinely “give thanks to God” from the outset, usually to considerable applause.

Gingrich sees all of this and believes an “anti-religious bias” dominates U.S. society. I have no idea why.

It wasn’t too long ago that al Qaeda was considered cash-strapped. More recently, however, the CIA, in the midst of an unsuccessful search for the terrorist network’s top leadership, noticed a new problem: the war in Iraq is helping fill al Qaeda’s coffers.

In one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that Al Qaeda’s command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network’s operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity.

The influx of money has bolstered Al Qaeda’s leadership ranks at a time when the core command is regrouping and reasserting influence over its far-flung network. The trend also signals a reversal in the traditional flow of Al Qaeda funds, with the network’s leadership surviving to a large extent on money coming in from its most profitable franchise, rather than distributing funds from headquarters to distant cells.

A senior U.S. counter-terrorism official added, “Iraq is a big moneymaker for them.”

This isn’t exactly a huge surprise, but it’s nevertheless a heartbreaking reminder about why the administration and its allies have Iraq backwards. Indeed, we learned last September from the National Intelligence Estimate that the war is “shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives,” creating a “cause celebre” for jihadists, which in turn “cultivat[es] supporters for the global jihadist movement.” Or, put another way, the war in Iraq is making it harder, not easier, to combat global terrorism, and in the case of al Qaeda, our presence has become something of a cash-cow.

I heartily endorse Kevin Drum’s take on the broader dynamic.

Say it with me: We. Need. To. Get. Out. The sooner the better. Our presence in Iraq is doing nothing for Iraq itself, which is doomed to sectarian civil war no matter what we do. It’s actively hindering the destruction of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which will almost certainly proceed more quickly and more ruthlessly once we leave. It’s made Iran into a more powerful regional player than it ever could have dreamed of. It’s produced a relentlessly worsening foreign policy catastrophe by swelling the ranks of Middle Eastern Muslims who support anti-American jihadism in spirit, even if they don’t directly support al-Qaeda itself. And it’s turned into a bonanza of recruiting and fundraising among those who do directly support al-Qaeda.

In almost every way you can think of, our continued presence in Iraq is bad for Iraq, bad for the Middle East, and bad for America’s own national security. I can’t even think of anything on the plus side of the ledger anymore, and every additional day we stay there only makes the ledger look worse.

It may seem a little early — OK, it is a little early — to consider motivating factors in the 2008 presidential race, but Tom Goldstein emailed me with a heads-up on a terrific piece he wrote about the election and the future balance of the Supreme Court.

While acknowledging upfront that justices’ retirements are unpredictable, Goldstein makes a compelling case that the next president will likely be in a position to name at least two, possibly three, members of the high court.

The next President similarly will have two appointments immediately (replacing Stevens and Souter), and there also is a very substantial prospect that a Democrat would quickly be in a position to appoint a third (replacing Ginsburg). In fact, if a Democrat wins, there will be something of a race for the exits.

Justice Stevens is 87. He seems in great health, but it is not reasonable to expect him to extend his tenure to age 93 (i.e., past the 2012 elections). Justice Souter is only 67. But he seems the most enthusiastic about leaving; he never embraced the job (or Washington, DC) as a lifetime commitment. Justice Ginsburg is 74. Many people say that she is in poor health, but I just don’t see that; it is easy to mistake her somewhat timid physical demeanor for broader health problems and she is certainly intellectually in top form. Nonetheless, one does get the strong sense that, having served 16 years by the time the next President takes office and facing the prospect of serving in the current environment until she reaches 80, Justice Ginsburg would very seriously consider allowing a Democratic President to nominate a replacement to be confirmed by a Democratic Senate.

Even a Justice on the left who is planning on leaving and would prefer to have his or her successor appointed by a Democrat will likely retire relatively early in a Republican presidency. The Senate will probably remain in Democratic hands in 2009, limiting the prospect of a very conservative replacement. So, I would be very surprised if Justices Stevens or Souter would stay. But the dilemma of leaving under a Republican President would be substantial for Justice Ginsburg, and I expect she would stay so long as her health permitted. […]

In sum, the 2008 election window presents the most significant opportunity to shape the direction of the Supreme Court that can be anticipated for roughly the next two decades – i.e., as far into the future as anyone can reasonably hope to look. For the left and the right, the stakes are genuinely high.

As Goldstein sees it, a Democratic victory in 2008 would help maintain at least the status quo on the Supreme Court for quite a while. A Republican victory would mean a rather dramatic opportunity to reshape American law.

Take a look; it’s a persuasive argument.

The White House’s recess appointments in early April seemed to strike an immediate chord among Senate Dems. They’ve become accustomed to a certain amount of offensive behavior from the president, but these appointments, especially Swiftboat Financier Sam Fox’s, were just so brazen. Dems went from frustrated to insulted overnight.

Dems sent out word that they saw this as a slap in the face. One senior Democratic Senate aide told Roll Call, “The administration hasn’t heard the last of this…. They managed to make a whole bunch of members mad and it doesn’t bode well for future attempts to move nominations through the Senate.”

But what, exactly, is the Senate Majority going to do about it? Apparently, Harry Reid’s office has an idea. (via Memeorandum)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a little trick up his sleeve that could spell an end to President Bush’s devilish recess appointments of controversial figures like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. We hear that over the long August vacation, when those types of summer hires are made, Reid will call the Senate into session just long enough to force the prez to send his nominees who need confirmation to the chamber. The talk is he will hold a quickie “pro forma” session every 10 days, tapping a local senator to run the hall.

Senate workers and Republicans are miffed, but Reid is proving that he’s the new sheriff in town.

Good for him.

This afternoon Ben Craw and I were working through the discussions of Alberto Gonzales on the Sunday shows for tomorrow’s episode of TPMtv. And there’s no mistaking that the tide has turned again on the AG.

But why? Little less than two week’s ago Gonzales appeared confident of his job as he recapped his series of dodges and lies before the House Judiciary Committee.

So what changed?

It’s not a difficult question to answer: James Comey.

At one level, that’s understandable and as it should be. Comey’s narrative of events back in March 2004 was a riveting example of the special mix of sycophancy, lickspittlism and lawlessness that is at the heart of Alberto Gonzales’s tenure as Attorney General.

But does it really tell us more about the man than we already knew? Or is there more that we really needed to know to know he had to go? I think the answer to that question is ‘no’. The bare facts of the ICU showdown had been reported some time ago. And more to the point, incredibly damning information has already come out about Gonzales’s role manipulating the federal prosecutorial system to advance the narrow interests of the Republican party and encourage fraudulent indictments.

The Comey story is extremely important. And it deserves all the attention it’s getting. At the same time though it shows the outsized importance granted to stories told as gripping first-person narratives. The point is too rooted in human nature to criticize it. It is what it is. One might as well criticize the rain.

But the point still deserves mentioning: What we’ve already learned about Gonzales is just as bad as the Comey story. We already knew more than enough to know he was morally and ethically unfit for the job.

Today’s Must Read: meeting the major players behind the voter fraud myth. Next up: Hans von Spakovsky. Collect them all!

USNews has more on how James Comey’s testimony is helping turn the tide on Gonzales.

Last week’s Comey testimony may have turned the tide on Alberto Gonzales. We take a look at what happened on the Sunday shows in today’s episode of TPMtv …

Late Update: For a summary of today’s episode, click here.

Dems are dramatically outpacing the GOP in online fundraising and activism. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.