The problem of illegal immigration, as everyone knows, is bad and getting worse. Ask anyone, they'll tell you -- the federal government has abdicated its responsibility to secure the borders, and as a result more and more illegal immigrants cross the border every year. As everyone knows.

There's only one problem with this -- it's not true anymore.

However, these statements lose nothing of their "truthiness." As Stephen Colbert defined this term, this means that it doesn't matter if it is true or not, because it sounds so true that everyone believes it anyway, because they want to believe it's true. [Official Colbert definition (there are actually many Colbert quotes on the subject to choose from): "Truthiness is 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' "]

Of course (snarkiness aside), I'm referring to the new report out from Pew which shows that illegal immigration is actually way down. From the Washington Post article which broke the news:

A deep recession and tougher border enforcement have led to a sharp decline in the number of immigrants entering the United States illegally in the past five years, contributing to the first significant reversal in the growth of their numbers in two decades, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The number of illegal immigrants entering the United States plunged by almost two-thirds between 2005 and 2009, a dramatic shift after years of growth in the population, according to the report.

In the first half of the decade, an average of 850,000 people a year entered the United States without authorization, according to the report, released Wednesday. As the economy plunged into recession between 2007 and 2009, that number fell to 300,000.

The drop has contributed to an 8 percent decrease in the estimated number of illegal immigrants living in the United States, from a peak of 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009, the report said.

So, of course, we can all expect the politicians arguing about the issue to revamp their rhetoric and start admitting the true situation, right? Well, in a perfect world, the answer would be yes, but this is far from a perfect world.

Even if it were so, it would just tee up the next argument -- why illegal immigration is down. And that's a dicier prospect, at best, because it gets into questions of causality, which are hard if not impossible to prove one way or another (proving causality would involve a lot of costly research which likely won't get done for years, if ever).

There are many candidates for possible contributing factors, which are likely working simultaneously to differing degrees. The amount of guest worker visas allowed by the U.S. is up, meaning more transitory labor can come here legally. Border enforcement is up, as are deportations. But the elephant in this particular room is most likely the economy itself. There are less jobs available, and therefore the "draw" for illegal immigrants is way down. Some may even be "reverse immigrating," or going back to their countries of origin because they can't find any work, meaning there's no point in their staying.

But politics isn't social science, where causality must be rigorously proven. Politics is, to be blunt, whatever you can get away with saying to the voters. Think not B.F. Skinner, but rather P.T. Barnum, in other words. "Event X happened because party Y passed legislation Z" is an expected statement from a politician, on any subject under the sun. Call it "spin" if you will, but a large part of it lies in convincing the American public that you have a right to claim credit because of your policies.

Meaning it will be interesting to see if either the Democrats or the Republicans change their tune in any way on the immigration debate. Not so much in the policies they are calling for, but rather in the way they speak of the issue itself.

Republicans, one assumes, would boast that: "We forced Bush and Obama to tighten up the border and put money into enforcement, and that is why illegal immigration is down." Democrats would likely say: "This happened while Democrats were in charge of Congress, so the public should put their trust in us to solve immigration, because we are already making such great strides in this area."

Both statements would be judged on the scales of truthiness by the public, since neither one would have any shred of proof attached.

But there's a third option, one which is kind of alarming. And that is that politicians from both sides of the aisle will deny the truth, and not shift their rhetoric in any way whatsoever. Republicans and Democrats will push for their respective policy ideas without acknowledging that the problem appears to be getting better. And it's a measure of their political honesty, in a way, because if politicians across the board continue to speak of the problem as "growing" or "not getting better" than it really shows that they both believe that we are now in a period of aberration in the data, because the economy is down. Meaning they are admitting that no matter what has so far been done on the issue is a bigger factor than pure economic reasons. Which is a rather self-defeating statement for any politician with any policy idea (other than: "let's wreck the U.S. economy so badly that nobody will want to come here," which isn't much of a policy suggestion).

There's a reason both parties may choose this route, because eventually the economy will get better. And if illegal immigration increases as a result, then they will avoid finger-pointing and the whole blame game when we get there. Which is, as I said, a measure of political honesty which not many politicians of either stripe may be capable of.

Which leaves the sole hope of the public that the media will adjust their questions and positions to fit the new data. For instance, "But illegal immigration is actually down, what do you have to say about that?" is the type of question they might begin to ask. But this may be asking too much of the media, because not unlike today's politicians, the media are deeply, deeply in love with truthiness, and show no signs of ending this love affair. If this weren't the case, Stephen Colbert never would have coined the term in the first place, and most of you (I'm guessing) wouldn't even have required me to define it.

In any case, it will certainly be interesting to see if (and how) the immigration debate changes as a result of the new Pew data. Of course, we may have to wait awhile, because it doesn't look likely the Senate is going to do anything on it this year, and next year's Congress may decide not to touch it, either. Just call it idle Thursday speculation on my part, I guess.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Dog days of August

Augusts, to be frank, are not President Obama's friend. The past month was no different, at least as measured by public opinion polling. Obama was on a downswing heading into the month, and his numbers reflect this in a stark way. In other words, it was a bad month for Obama.

As I pointed out last month, "Augusts, to put it mildly, haven't been very kind to Obama. He's got some sort of Augustine Jinx happening, or something. Two years ago, August was 'Reverend Wright' month for Obama on the campaign trail. Last year, August was 'death panel' month at the town hall meetings from Hell."

By that measure, at least, this past August wasn't actually all that bad. Given the choice of reliving the past month versus August 2009 or 2008, I'd be willing to bet Obama would choose this year's dog days in a heartbeat.

But, while Obama's poll numbers last month were pretty bad, there was some good news at the end. In keeping with this, we're going to present the bad news here first, and save the silver lining for the end of today's article.

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President Barack Obama, in his second primetime address of his presidency, declared that it was time to turn a page in Iraq, and that the combat mission known as Operation Iraqi Freedom was now over. When Obama took over the war from George W. Bush, he was handed two milestones to meet, from an agreement signed by Bush and the Iraqis one month before Obama took office. The first was getting American combat troops out of Iraqi cities, which happened last summer, and the second was getting all American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. To these Obama added a third milestone -- withdrawing American forces down to 50,000 troops or less. His speech tonight was the announcement that he had achieved this self-imposed deadline.

Obama struck a rather humble tone in his remarks, which seemed just about right for the situation. He didn't go out of his way to either claim personal credit, or point the finger of blame. He even included President Bush, by name, in his remarks, after phoning him earlier today.

This was a fitting end for a war which divided the American public, in more ways than one. When the war began, the American people supported it at a rate of 70 percent or better. Just tonight, CBS released a poll which showed that, as of now, only 20 percent of the American public think "the war in Iraq was worth it." A whopping 79 percent of them think "it was not worth it." What this mostly shows is the fickle nature of American public opinion. Think about those numbers for a second. That's a "swing vote" of over half the country. In other words, less than half of Americans have held consistent views on the Iraq war since it began.

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President Obama will give an Oval Office address tomorrow night in primetime, on the subject of Iraq. This is a good idea, because it's a good use of the famed bully pulpit of the presidency, to highlight some good news. Speaking to the nation on television is a perk of office which can be quite effective in getting a message out to the American people. But there's another way to do this as well, and one that President Obama has all but ignored in the past year -- the presidential press conference. And it's about time we had another one.

The Obama team strategy has been to favor one-on-one press interviews over the formal setting of a press conference. The president, just last night, appeared on a major network in such a sit-down interview. But it's a mistake to barricade the president from press conferences, because they can also be quite effective at getting your message out. Press conferences are more of a duty than a perk to presidents, and apparently Obama has decided to just ignore doing this particular duty. This is a mistake. Obama really needs to get over his fear of press conferences, and start holding them on a regular basis.

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The battle looms. It is, in fact, right over a hill right in front of us. So, are Democrats girding their loins for the fight, and roaring their defiance at the opposition?

Um, well, not that I've noticed. Sigh. Instead, loins un-girded and roars muted to the level of squabbling jaybirds, Democrats are once again acting like Democrats.

The big fight this election season hasn't really dawned yet. And all the issues in the past will likely pale in comparison to the big fight that's just ahead of us. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (to his credit) set up this fight, right before the midterm election's homestretch. The big fight this year is going to be over extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest two percent of American workers, and to the top three percent of American small businesses. On the other side are, respectively, ninety-eight percent of American workers, and ninety-seven percent of American small businesses. Not bad odds, even for Democrats.

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About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy

We're going to take a cartoon break today, because I have not just one but actually two cartoons waiting in the wings from C.W. Cunningham. I'm going to post them separately here, because the second one needs its own title. The first shows a different perspective of an earlier cartoon.

Enjoy!

-- Chris Weigant

About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy

The "hostile takeover" of the Republican Party by the Tea Partiers continues apace. Except, of course, where it doesn't. Like much else about the entire Tea Party movement, it's hard to pin down exactly what is going on and what it all means. Which, of course, doesn't stop us pundits from trying! Ahem. But, other than making life interesting for the political chattering classes, the real question is now (as it has always been): will the Tea Partiers wind up being a net positive or a net negative for the Republican Party, especially when it comes to Senate races?

The answer, as with all things Tea Party, is (once again): "it's hard to be sure." We won't really know until after the midterm elections, and at that point so much "spin" will be on the airwaves one might (if one grew up in Kansas, for the sake of argument) be excused the immediate impulse to run for the tornado shelter in the backyard. In other words, even after the elections, the answer is going to depend on who is doing the answering.

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Realistically, that headline should read "Disappointment Poll Results," so I'll just start off by apologizing. Ahem.

Yesterday we ran a poll here on why, exactly, Obama has disappointed so many Lefties (and other people who voted for him). Today we present the results of this poll, which (so far) has garnered exactly 100 entries, a statistically nice round number.

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While the major fallout from Robert Gibbs' recent slap in the face to "the professional left" has died down a bit, a second round of examination seems to have begun -- one much more introspective and much less knee-jerk than the first round. But the problem seems to be that the people writing about it are mostly of the inside-the-Beltway punditry, meaning it lacks a certain breadth, I think.

This isn't to say such articles aren't valuable, and worth debate. Greg Sargent, who writes the political blog The Plum Line over at WashingtonPost.com, titled today's article: "Why is left so disappointed in Obama?" In it, Sargent discusses an article in Politico which attempts to answer this question, and comes up with his own take on things. Which immediately led me to thinking: "Well, why not ask a few Lefties what they think?"

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