Friday’s Wall Street Journal reported more alarming news for the Republican Party: according to the new WSJ/NBC Poll, Hispanics now identify themselves as Democrats rather than Republicans by a horrifyingly lopsided margin of 51% to 21%.

This reflects a collapse of Hispanic support for Republicans since 2004, when Bush nearly matched John Kerry in the Latino community, 45% to 55%.

Senator Mel Martinez, an ardent advocate of comprehensive immigration reform and Chairman of the Republican National Committee, tried to put the best possible spin on the new figures. He told the Journal that “a skillful 2008 Republican candidate can recover ground because ‘Hispanics tend to personalize politics’ rather than identify with parties.”

One can only hope that he’s right, and the Republicans avoid the obvious disaster of nominating anyone who has flirted with the anti-immigrant rhetoric so popular at the moment among conservatives. But even if the Presidential nominee can win back some of the lost ground among Latinos, that doesn’t necessarily mean progress for candidates on the rest of the ballot or on national efforts to recapture the House and the Senate.

The new poll should come as a sobering reminder that the current hysteria against “illegal aliens” (and even opposition to further legal immigration by Tom Tancredo and his followers) is helping to alienate the most rapidly growing ethnic segment of the American electorate.

Hispanics now represent at least 14% of the US population and the strong majority of these people have immigrated legally, or else they’re native born. Even if all the illegals went home in the next few years (fat chance), and even if we stopped all future immigration from Hispanic countries (both legal and illegal), Latinos would still rapidly increase their political influence and power. For one thing, their high marriage and birth rates means a growing population and, for another, every year more legal immigrants manage to complete the naturalization process to become citizens (and voters).  

In recent years, Republicans have managed to remain a competitive party in most states of the union in part because they have successfully competed for Latino support. If, on the other hand, we ever reached the situation where 80% of Hispanics automatically, unthinkingly, voted for Democrats (in addition to the more than 80% of African-Americans who automatically, unthinkingly vote for Democrats), then we will never again see a GOP president, or a Republican majority in either House of Congress.

Sure, Republicans might still win occasional local fights in Utah or Nebraska or Alabama, but they would become just as irrelevant in national terms as they are today in the State of California. The anti-immigrant posturing of former Governor Pete Wilson in 1994 helped transform the nation’s largest state from a battleground that Republicans often won (with strong Hispanic support) into an-all-but uncontested Democratic fiefdom where only a GOP anomaly like Arnold the Governator (with his outspoken record of sympathy and support for his fellow immigrants) can secure enough Latino backing to prevail.

Despite the courageous reform efforts of far-sighted Republican Senators and of President Bush, the loudest voices in the GOP currently speak in strident, angry, desperate, uncompromising and unmistakably anti-immigrant tones. In the midst of our ongoing debates, all those who care at all about the party’s future ought to keep in mind that the nation’s more than 40 million Latinos are avidly listening.   

The headline in the Los Angeles Times should grab attention from all sides in the immigration debate: LEGALIZATION OF IMMIGRANTS WIDELY BACKED, declared California’s top circulation newspaper, reporting on the results of a Times/Bloomberg poll.

Reporter Janet Hook began her article this way:

 “A strong majority of Americans – including nearly two thirds of Republicans – favor allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens if they pay fines, learn English and meet other requirements, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

  “That is a striking show of support for a primary element of an immigration overhaul bill that has stalled in the Senate amid conservative opposition.

  “Only 23% of adults surveyed opposed allowing undocumented immigrants to gain legal status. This finding bolsters the view shared by President Bush, that the bill’s opponents represent a vocal minority whereas most people are more welcoming toward illegal immigrants.”

This is highly biased reporting, of course: even though I agree with the basic conclusion (that a “silent majority” exists favoring some means of earned legalization for some of the illegals living in this country) the Times story is somewhat misleading.

When you actually read the question the poll asked, they pointedly used the term “undocumented immigrants” rather than “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” – and I do think that makes a difference. No, I don’t believe it would have reversed the results, but I do think that if they had used the key word “illegal,” those results would have been somewhat less lopsided than they were (with Republicans favoring earned legalization 65% to 27%, and Democrats backing it even more overwhelmingly, 66% to 19%).

This result mirrors a similar poll in the New York Times a few weeks ago, with 66% of the public backing a path to legalization based on paying fines, background checks, paying back taxes, learning English, and so forth.

If there really is such strong support for the provisions of the compromise Senate bill, why do so many conservatives (and nearly all of my fellow talk hosts) believe that opinion is nearly unanimous in the other direction?

In a sense, I suspect that this perception stems from the obvious fact that opponents of the bill are far more outraged, indignant and desperate than are those who want to see comprehensive reform go forward. Anger is energizing—and nearly all of the energetic calls to talk radio seem to come from angry and, for the most part, decent and patriotic Americans who nonetheless feel furious about the prospect of any path to legalization for any of those who reside in this country illegally.

There’s another factor that makes much of talk radio feel like an echo chamber, or the “amen corner,” with the same impassioned arguments deployed again and again and again (“What is it about illegal that you don’t understand?,” “If you reward people for breaking the law, you’ll only get more law-breaking,” “It’s unfair to all the patient legal immigrants to let the illegals cut to the front of the line,” “why don’t they just enforce the laws we have, before we make new laws” etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.) Each of the arguments against the bill can be answered, patiently and substantively, but it’s wearying to go through the same points repeatedly when people on all sides of the argument seem so unwilling to listen.

After several weeks of near hysteria, I believe that most Americans have begun to suffer (appropriately) from “immigration fatigue” – or even “immigration exhaustion.” Angry people let off steam by expressing their righteous wrath repeatedly. The rest of us begin to feel fatigued by all the indignation and apocalyptic talk.

If a comprehensive immigration bill passes the Senate, and then the House, and then surveys the House-Senate conference, and passes again in each house and then makes it to the president’s desk, I believe it will be good for the country. But if it fails to pass, it won’t be the end of the world. The next day the sun will still rise, and we’ll still live in the greatest nation on God’s green earth, and we’ll manage to go on to other issues.

The silent majority on immigration reform isn’t just silent because they’re less impassioned on the issue, but because they’re more tired of it.

That’s why I’ve made a concerted effort to prevent immigration talk from taking over my radio show. What could we possibly hear that’s new?

An illegal immigrant from Peru named Luis provided one answer to that question by calling my show today and expressing his own opposition to the bill: he hates the idea (as a homeowner and independent businessman who’s been hear more than a decade) that he’d be forced to go back to his wretched home country before he could get his green card, let alone citizenship. He says he’d pay any fine, file any papers, wait patiently in line, and so forth: but he won’t go through the motions at all if it means he’s forced to separate from his American-born kids and go home.

In any event, that seemed different: an illegal who’s opposed to earned legalization, if it takes the form required in the current bill.

But still – enough already!

Listeners have probably noticed: I won’t let IDS (Immigration Derangement Syndrome) take over my whole show, and we try to strictly limit any conversation on the subject to one hour (at most) out of the daily three.

Meanwhile, polls and common sense indicate that despite remaining questions about many of the details of the current bill, the public (including a strong REPUBLICAN majority, in the Senate and in our communities) wants Congress to move forward to address this issue.

Maybe, at that point, the weary but quiet majority can get some much-needed relief from the sour affliction of immigration fatigue.

As the battle heats up over immigration reform, advocates on both sides ought to pause to consider the likely consequences if they prevail.

If current efforts fail in enacting some meaningful compromise, there is no chance that the situation with illegals will improve. Hard-liners may feel exultant at a short-term victory, but they should consider the long-term results. If immigration reform explodes in this session of Congress, only two results are possible: 1) that no meaningful change occurs in our immigration policy in the foreseeable future, and a bad situation gets progressively worse. Yes, it’s possible that the construction of the border fence might go forward and reduce the flow across the border, but no real change is possible for workplace enforcement or the millions of undocumented already here unless there is some change in the law—and any change in an exclusively “get tough” direction would be blocked by the Democrats who control Congress. 2) It’s also possible that the initiative in pressing for immigration reform will pass from the likes of Senators Kyl, McCain, Lott, Graham, Chambliss and other conservatives, and be taken up by the likes of Senators Clinton, Obama, Boxer, and others—for whom the current compromise is vastly too harsh. Those who believe that a future reform will look tougher, and more demanding, in cracking down on illegals must be dreaming about some far distant restrictionist utopia, with an unlikely re-emergence of the Republican Party (which clearly won’t ever again draw the 45% of Latino voters President Bush drew in 2004) with some commanding new majority. How is this supposed to happen if the party concedes to the opposition an automatic 80% of all Hispanics, the way it now concedes an automatic 80% of blacks?

If, on the other hand, comprehensive immigration reform passes in some form in this session of Congress then there is at least a chance that the situation on the ground will improve. Many illegals (if not most) will come forward, provide information to the government, and pay their fines and back taxes in order to get their “Z Visas.” A smaller group will pay all $6,500 and go through the 13-to-15 year process (including a touch-back trip home) in order to earn their citizenship – and those who do so, will be demonstrating their desire to assimilate into our country and to join the mainstream, not to resist Americanization. Others, of course, will refuse to cooperate with the new rules (just as they’ve defied the old rules) and will find it harder to work. Proposed new workplace enforcement and ID provisions would punish employers those who hire even one illegal worker, without verifying his ID against a new federalized data base.

No, the new system won’t work perfectly or flawlessly – it’s a government system, after all. But it offers the chance of improvement – which simple resistance to reform does not. Under the new policies, some illegals would come forward and try to correct their status – thereby reducing the number of those who defy the law. Others, who continue to defy the law, thereby facing a tougher time in finding work, might well be encouraged to go home. Still others, will try to continue to live in the shadows, and should be the focus of intensified deportation efforts.

A “final solution” to the millions who have crossed so far? Hardly, but a chance for making the problem better, rather than merely complaining about it. The new policy would also strongly discourage future illegal crossings: anyone identified as having come across the border without papers after January 1, 2007, would be finger-printed and forever banned from guest worker programs, visas, or any legal status in the USA.

The best part of actual passage of comprehensive reform (if it happens) would be putting the issue aside for the next several years.

 If reform fails, Democrats and immigrant rights organizations will take the lead in changing the system their way, and Republicans will continue to snipe at one another in helpless, impotent rage.  If reform passes, on the other hand, the issue will subside as the new system – with its new border enforcement deployed first – begins to take hold. Once the earned legalization provisions are offered, and are on the books (not for future arrivals—only for those already here) it will be all but impossible for even the most impassioned of hard-liners to expect those provisions to be removed or repealed. At that point, all people of conscience can concentrate (as we should) on making good on the reform elements designed to greatly enhance border security, and to reduce or eliminate the entrance of new waves of illegals.

The reduction of public hysteria on the immigration issue (currently destroying the Republican Party and its chances of survival) will be a blessing for the conservative movement and for the country.

That reduction is only possible if Congress does the right thing, the courageous thing, and passes some form of comprehensive reform. Without that passage, this tormenting issue will continue to make unwitting enemies of necessary allies and pollute our politics with its singularly destructive and poisonous toxins.

Two recent headlines gave starkly divergent summaries of the state of public opinion on comprehensive immigration reform.

The New York Times (May 25^th) reported: “IMMIGRATION BILL PROVISIONS GAIN WIDE SUPPORT IN POLL.”

Meanwhile, two days earlier Rasmussen Reports summarized its own poll with the headline: “JUST 26% FAVOR SENATE IMMIGRATION PLAN.”

The substance of the reporting seemed similarly contradictory. Describing  a CBS News/NY Times survey of 1,125 adults (conducted May 18-23), the Times declared: “Taking a pragmatic view on a divisive issue, a large majority of Americans want to change the immigration laws to allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status and to create a new guest worker program to meet future labor demands, the poll found.”

On the other hand, the Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted at virtually the same time period (May 21-22) discovered that “initial public reaction to the immigration proposal being debated in the Senate is decidedly negative…. Just 26% of American voters favor passage of the legislation. Forty-eight percent are opposed while 26% are not sure.”

The New York Times/CBS poll reported, however, that “point by point, large majorities expressed support for measures in the legislation that has been under debate since Monday in the Senate.” For instance, on the crucial question, “Should illegal immigrants get a renewable visa if they pay a fine, have a clean record and pass a background check?” more than two thirds (67% agreed), while only 27% registered opposition. Even among self described Republicans, 66% supported the concept of “earned legalization.”

How could two polls, both from reputable public opinion operations, produce such dramatically different results? Did either CBS News/NY Times or Rasmussen deliberately distort their results to produce the outcomes they desired?

That explanation appears highly unlikely, given the inevitable and devastating damage to any polling organization caught in such manipulation. Pollsters (like everyone else) maintain their own biases, but if they allow their ideology to color their work they quickly lose credibility.

In truth, it’s perfectly plausible that both polls gave an accurate indication of public response to the questions they asked. The crucial point here is that the questions posed to the public were every bit as different as the results they produced.

The New York Times poll asked for public opinion on specific points of policy. It approached respondents with questions like “What should happen to illegal immigrants who have been in the US for at least two years?” (62% said “Should be allowed to apply for legal status,” 33% said “should be deported), or “Would you favor or oppose a guest worker program?” (68% favor, only 30% oppose).

The Rasmussen Reports survey, on the other hand, asked about the Senate bill in the abstract, without spelling out its provisions. “In our question measuring support for the Senate bill,” they explained, “Rasmussen Reports did not describe the details of the proposed legislation. We asked survey respondents how closely they have followed news stories about ‘an immigration reform agreement reached by the Bush Administration and a bi-partisan group of Senators.”

In other words, the Rasmussen respondents registered their dislike of the very idea of the Senate bill without any understanding whatever of the specifics of the proposed reforms. For instance, the same group that showed overwhelming opposition to the “immigration reform agreement” showed even more overwhelming support for its most controversial provisions.

Asked, “Would you support an immigration compromise including a very long path to citizenship, provided that the proposal required the aliens to pay fines and learn English, and that the compromise would truly reduce the number of illegal aliens entering the country?” an amazing 65% of the Rasmussen survey said yes.

Each of the details mentioned in that question counts as part of the current Senate proposal, where the earliest an illegal alien could qualify for citizenship would be thirteen years after the bill’s passage, and they would have to pay at least $6,500 in fines and show English proficiency before qualifying even for a green card, let alone citizenship. Moreover, none of the changes in status for today’s undocumented aliens would be possible without the bill’s “triggering” mechanism, with certification that the number of entering illegals had, indeed, already been reduced (a process involving building at least half of the border fence, deploying many more border patrol agents, establishing a new system of workplace enforcement and reliable ID, and more – a process estimated to take at least eighteen months from the bill’s enactment).

In other words, the Rasmussen results actually re-enforce, rather than contradict, the New York Times survey. Like the New York Times/CBS respondents, the Rasmussen survey indicates massive support for a path to earned legalization with strict and demanding conditions.

When people know nothing about immigration reform beyond the hysterical (and increasingly dishonest) denunciations of “amnesty” on talk radio and on Lou Dobbs, they naturally dislike it. If they take the time to consider the actual components of the proposed legislation, however, they support those provisions by overwhelming margins of more than two-to-one.

This means that the challenge to those of us who seriously desire immigration reform involves cutting through the ranting and the lies and the noisy sloganeering and trying to explain, as substantively and honestly as possible, what comprehensive reform actually involves.

In the process, it’s inevitable that hysterics and demagogues will denounce anyone who urges meaningful change as a traitor or sell-out or dupe--- a denunciation that never comes with an explanation of why the opponents of reform want so desperately to preserve the status quo of the current broken system, with all its obscene costs, hypocrisy, and security threats to our country.

Providing honest information and argument respects the judgment and patriotism of the American people. Befouling the public discourse with pronouncements of doom and conspiracy theories, instinctive negativity and simplistic slogans, insults the intelligence of the populace and threatens the nation’s future. 

  The most common and most powerful argument against comprehensive immigration reform involves the claim that providing illegals with a path to legalization amounts to rewarding bad behavior. If you reward bad behavior, doesn’t that always mean that you’ll get more of it?

This logic is unassailable, but the bi-partisan Senate bill makes a point of rewarding only good behavior. If an illegal immigrant comes forward, pays a fine for his illegal entry, registers with the government, gets verifiable ID, and goes through a background check, isn’t that a step in the right direction? The new system would only provide rewards – like the right to remain in the US – in return for such positive actions; without them, the immigrant would be subject to deportation.

Of course, sneaking across the border without authorization amounts to bad behavior – but the new bill devotes considerable resources to stopping such entries in the future. For those who have already crossed, who have already behaved badly, it provides a means to atone for your negative actions with positive steps – not automatic forgiveness. To earn full legal residency, you’d need to pay a total of $6,500 in fines and fees (per worker), wait for a minimum of eight years, learn English, pay back taxes, prove that you’re fully employed more than 90% of the time, and go back to your home country to apply for a visa. Then, after that, it would still take a minimum of five more years – a total of 13 years – for citizenship. This is not some “free pass,” that privileges rule breakers.

Do we want to encourage illegals to try to rectify their status – to come out of the shadows, play by the rules, pay all taxes due, learn English, and assimilate into our society? Or do we only want them to disappear – nursing the delusional fantasy that some 12 million human beings will somehow uproot themselves (in many cases after years of US residency) and return to their impoverished homelands simply because we want them to do so?

And speaking of rewarding good behavior, and punishing the bad: those courageous conservatives (Senators Kyl, Graham, Isakson and, yes, McCain) who have worked constructively and seriously on immigration reform deserve our support, not our rage, while those politicians and media figures who have demagogued this issue in a way that only makes it worse, in no way merit our encouragement.

One of the favorite rhetorical tricks of the secular left involves the comparison of Islamo-Nazi terrorists with Christian conservatives. Rosie O’Donnell on “The View” specifically declared that the American Christian Right represents a danger similar to Islamist fanatics while Howard Dean and others regular refer to “the Taliban wing of the Republican Party” as a way to stigmatize pro-lifers and other social conservatives.

Recent revelations about the Fort Dix Six (the Muslim fanatics in New Jersey who allegedly planned murderous attacks on US soldiers) serve as a potent reminder, however, that religious enthusiasm brings very special risks for Muslim families.

The New York Times quoted relatives of several of the accused terrorists as worrying over their increasing religiosity. Murat Duka, a relative of the three illegal immigrants at the heart of the conspiracy, declared: “It’s fine to be a religious man. But if you get too much to the religion, you get out of your mind and do stupid things.”

The father of another suspected plotter, Serdar Tatar, told reporters that “the young man had gravitated to radical Islam in recent years, prompting a rift between them. “I’m not a religious person,” said Muslim Tatar. “I don’t want my son to be a religious person, but he was a religious person.”

It’s true that in Christian and Jewish homes some casually religious parents may worry over the faith-based intensity of their offspring. But these concerns involve potential damage to the child himself – who may harm his career, or wear funny clothes, or embarrass the family by handing out obnoxious tracts. No Christian or Jewish parents need worry, however, that the intensifying religiosity of a child will lead to acts of violence against others, or to suicide as a means of gaining “paradise.”

Muslim parents do worry about such outcomes, however – because literally tens of thousands of their most devout young people have encouraged of horrifying acts of brutality and self destruction. When Murat Duka expresses concern that religion will cause you to “get out of your mind and do stupid things,” the stupid things he has in mind are far worse than talking in tongues, or growing an unkempt beard, or restricting your diet based on ancient law.

Outsiders may see radical Islam and Evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Judaism as similarly “fundamentalist,” but the nightmarish experience and legitimate fears of the Muslim families of the Fort Dix Six, suggest that not all fundamentalisms are created equal.

  Everyone makes mistakes, and not every misstatement of fact amounts to a lie.

  But if a gross distortion is repeated and defended, despite clear-cut evidence of its inaccuracy,  then a mistake can become a lie – a deliberate, or at least shamefully careless, falsehood.

  Senator Barack Obama recently provided a good example of a stupid mistake that in no way qualifies as a lie. Speaking to a campaign rally, the enthusiastic Senator expressed horror at the Kansas tornado which, he declared, “wiped out a whole town…. 10,000 people died.” Actually, he fell 9,988 casualties from the mark: only 12 people perished in the Greensburg tornado. Within minutes of his embarrassing speech, his campaign aides acknowledged the error and apologized to the media.

   In a similar if less spectacular vein, I also misstated a victim count on my radio show on Tuesday. A caller tried to make the ridiculous point that my talk about the “Fort Dix Jihadis” amounted to a deliberate diversion from the national emergency involving criminal aliens. The caller said that the New Jersey conspirators hoped to kill “only” 100 soldiers, but that illegal aliens murder several times that number every single week. He went on to claim that illegals murdered some 8,000 to 9,000 Americans every year.

   I insisted that his number counted as absurd, laughable, dishonest and ridiculous --- since, I said, only 10,600 Americans die of murder each year, and there is no chance that the heavy majority of them are killed by immigrants.

   Actually, the figure that I pulled from memory covers gun deaths each year – which is why it stuck in my mind after heavy repetition following Virginia Tech. Recent statistics for all murders are, in fact, somewhat higher – amounting to a bit over 16,000 killed annually in recent years. That number is still way down from the 23,438 murders logged in 1990 (before the current wave of mass immigration, by the way) and a dramatic decline in the murder rate—which reached 10.2 per 100,000 population in 1980, and stands at 5.5 per 100,000 today (all statistics from the FBI: Uniform Crime Reports). As I accurately commented on the air, the overall murder rate has been cut nearly in half in the last quarter century, despite a proliferation of guns and immigrants. Within minutes of my misstatement of the actual raw number of murder victims, I corrected the number on the air—and acknowledged my mistake to the listeners.

   But the claim of “8,000 to 9,000” killed by illegals remains ridiculous, unsubstantiated, irresponsible and, in fact, demented. The government doesn’t provide statistics on who committed every murder because many killings, of course, remain unsolved. We do have numbers, however, on those arrested for murder and those numbers (classified by race) show no basis whatever for suggesting that illegals predominate when it comes to killing their fellow US residents. The “Uniform Crime Report” doesn’t list a separate figure for “illegal aliens” or even for Hispanics, but it does divide murder arrests between blacks and whites --- with “blacks” representing 47.2% of all arrested murderers, “whites” amounting to 50.5% and “other” (mostly Native Americans) counted as 2.3%.

   Since only a tiny percentage of American blacks (most of whom descend from slaves forced to this country before the War Between the States) qualify as illegal aliens (or legal immigrants, for that matter), these numbers would mean that at least two-thirds of the self-described “white” murderers would have to be “illegals” to come up with anything close to the ludicrous figure of 8,000 murder victims of undocumented immigrants per year.

   To further settle the issue, consider the states with the highest murder rates per 100,000: they are Louisiana (12.7), Maryland (9.4), and by far the winner, the District of Columbia (with a staggering 35.8). None of these bloody jurisdictions is known for concentrations of illegals. Meanwhile, those states most famous for burgeoning populations of the undocumented show murder rates that only moderately exceed the national average of 5.5 – including Texas at 6.1 and California at 6.7. In other words, illegals may create a host of other serious problems (particularly for our over-taxed medical and educational institutions) but they can’t be blamed for the majority or even for half of the national murder rate.

   This conclusion then raises the touchy issue of a “statistic” that may have arisen from an honest misunderstanding, but now amounts to a ludicrous distortion, an irresponsible bit of demagoguery or, most likely, an outright lie.

    A few politicians and many, many conservative talk show hosts (who honestly ought to know better) have taken up the cry that “nearly one third of all inmates crowding our prisons are illegal aliens.” Sometimes, those citing this number will make a slightly more modest claim: that 29% of all prisoners are illegals, or 27%, or some other hugely disproportionate number.

    This claim is so dishonest, so wide of the mark, so utterly unsubstantiated that the people who continue to recycle it ought to apologize, and acknowledge their mistake – or else they’re participating in a deliberate lie.

     Here are the facts, easily available from the FBI, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Budget Office, or any other reputable source:

    Among inmates in federal prisons, it’s true that a highly disproportionate number of prisoners have been classified as “non-citizens” or “criminal aliens.” Many of these immigrants turn up in federal prison because of problems with their immigration status (surprise!) or because they’re involved with the interstate or international drug trade.

     But federal prisoners represent only a small percentage – just 8%--of our total prison population. The bulk of inmates have been incarcerated in state prisons (including nearly all convicts accused of murder)and there, non-citizens are, if anything, under-represented: amounting to less than 5% of the prisoner population.

    Taking the total state-federal prison population (2,193,798) and the total number of non-citizens in both systems (122,708), the actual percentage of “criminal aliens” in our prisons amounts to 5.5% --- not even remotely close to the 29% or “one third” claimed by clownish demagogues. 

   Repeatedly misrepresenting the percentage of “illegals” in our prisons by a factor of more than 5 to 1 amounts to more than a trivial mistake, and becomes an outrageous, irresponsible, indefensible lie.

   As a matter of fact, the distortion is even worse than an overstatement of some 500% because the 5.5% in the prison system represents not “illegal aliens” but all “non-citizens” –including legal immigrants, and those here on temporary visas, and so forth. Every academic study (including conclusive work done at Harvard, University of Chicago, University of California, San Diego, and elsewhere) suggests that illegal immigrants are less likely, not more likely, than legal immigrants to involve themselves in criminal activity—in part because of their fear of deportation.

  According to most estimates, legal immigrants who haven’t yet qualified for citizenship probably outnumber illegal immigrants in the overall population. There’s every reason to believe, therefore, that such legal immigrants also outnumber the illegals among the “non-citizens” or “criminal aliens” counted in the prison population.

   In any event, with a total of 5.5% of the prison population, including both legal and illegal immigrants, it’s virtually certain that illegals are actually under-represented among prisoners. The lowest current estimate for “undocumented immigrants” is 12 million--- or 4% of the national population. There’s little chance that these illegals represent more than – or even as much as --- 4% of our total prison population.

   Does this mean that illegal immigration is okay, or that it isn’t a problem, or that we ought to give up efforts to stem the flow of unauthorized entrants across our southern border?

   Of course not. As I’ve acknowledged time and again, illegal immigration represents a significant problem and a very real threat to US security and prosperity. We need to deal with that crisis honestly and effectively.

   But continuing to repeat and to recycle phony numbers about the number of illegals in our jails doesn’t help us move toward a solution. It only serves to marginalize the legitimate concerns of patriotic people who yearn to take effective control of our borders.

   The numbers are available, for anyone who cares about the truth.

Whatever we do about immigration reform, the number of “fugitive aliens” has become terrifying. These are people who have already been picked up at least once by authorities and ordered to leave the country—but a staggering 636,000 of them have eluded capture and deportation.

More than 200,000 of these people have actually committed crimes other than immigration violations, but law enforcement still can’t bring them in. Since 2003, the manpower assigned to the task has increased more than four-fold—but officials have captured only 45,000 of the fugitive aliens, less than 10 percent of the total!

These figures demonstrate the urgent need for setting clear priorities in immigration enforcement. Activists dream of deporting millions, but we ought to start by catching hundreds-of-thousands who’ve already been officially deported. Clearly, it makes more sense to focus our efforts on apprehending these fugitive aliens than obsessing over far less dangerous illegals who are working at jobs and raising families.

The AP is reporting that former presidential candidate (and Iowa Governor) Tom Vilsack is endorsing Hillary.

Because of his network in Iowa, this is obviously a big coup.

I’m greatly encouraged by the lengthy, indignant responses by prominent scare-mongers Joe Farah and Jerome Corsi to my on-air and on-blog denunciation (“Shame on Demagogues for Exploiting ‘North American Union’!”, 12/28) of their self-promoting paranoia regarding an alleged conspiracy to merge the US, Canada and Mexico. The defensive tone of their commentary suggests that these two have been appropriately embarrassed: Farah, in particular, dramatically deescalated his rhetoric.

While previous commentary on WorldNetDaily prominently and regularly featured the noun “plot” in defining this non-issue, his answer to my purposefully harsh attack omits that key word entirely and uses language in a vastly more responsible and rational style. If I can push an influential (and often insightful) journalist like Farah back toward reasoned debate and the mainstream, then I’ve already succeeded in my chief goal: to prevent conservatives from following self-interested Pied Pipers off a cliff into conspiracist cuckoo land.

I’m particularly gratified at the way that Farah worded his “Daily Poll” on this issue. He posed the question: “What do you make of the talk about the North American Union?” and offered only two alternatives (out of nine) that agreed with the lunatic alarmists on the subject. Those two choices declared: “The evidence keeps mounting. When will people stop being in denial?” and “Plans for a union are an absolute reality, and anyone who can’t see concerted attacks on U.S. sovereignty is blind.” Please note that in declaring “the evidence keeps mounting,” this response never specifies what, exactly this “evidence” is supposed to prove. Similarly, the statement that “plans for a union are an absolute reality” never suggests who it is who is making those plans. If the plans (not “plots” this time) for a North American Union are coming from forces on the left as marginal as the fringies on the right who worry about such shcemes, then there is, indeed, no reason for fear.

Amazingly enough, Farah himself supports this reassuring perspective in his muddled attempt to defend his previous hysteria. He identifies one Robert Pastor “as the man at the very center of the plans for a North American Union.” Pastor is a loony leftist, slightly unhinged professor at American University who was an enthusiastic supporter (and informal advisor) to John Kerry’s Presidential juggernaut--- and who bears no connection whatever to the Bush administration, or the dreaded Security and Prosperity Partnership. If an addled academic with zero power in the government and no clout whatever with the current administration is “the man at the very center of the plans for a North American Union” do those plans really sound so menacing and dire and imminent?

Moreover, even Professor Pastor (in an interview with NAU demagogue-in-chief Jerome Corsi, as quoted by Farah) specifically denies any desire for a North American Union. “Each of the proposals I have laid out represent (sic) more than just small steps,” Pastor proclaimed. “But it doesn’t represent a leap to a North American Union or even to some confederation of any kind. I don’t think either is plausible, necessary or even helpful to contemplate at this stage.” (Italics added)

I know that paranoids and conspiracy connoisseurs will seize on the last three words “at this stage” and scream, “Aha! The dreaded Pastor—the evil academic who’s the architect of the whole diabolical scheme – is suggesting at some later stage it WILL be plausible, necessary, or even helpful to contemplate a North American Union!”

But please, friends, consider this: if even the lefty professor who is considered the most dangerous plotter and visionary on the prospect of US-Mexican-Canadian merger explicitly denies any interest whatever in even contemplating that scheme at this stage, does it really make any sense—any sense at all – to frighten the public into believing that there is a current, powerful mass movement on behalf of such plans?

That’s the essence of my impassioned concern with the demagoguery on this subject: by focusing concern on a non-existent threat, people like Farah and Corsi take attention away from the very real dangers posed by the liberal ideologues who have taken over both houses of Congress.

There are open, undeniable, widely supported plans from the Democratic leadership to cripple the country in our war against Islamo-Nazis, to undermine our security agencies in the name of “constitutional rights,” to raise taxes, to punish productivity, to grow government, to undermine the traditional family, to nationalize health care, to force us all out of our cars (and onto useless mass transit) and to push through precisely the sort of immigration policies that most conservatives will absolutely hate. These plans demand a united Republican Party and a re-energized conservative movement that isn’t distracted and paralyzed by non-existent threats concerning non-existent plans to terminate the independent survival of the United States. (“PREMEDIATED MERGER: How Leaders are Stealthily Transforming USA into North American Union” reads one typical and current Farah headline.)

This is a fateful moment for the conservative moment that Barry Goldwater launched and that Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich and, yes, George W. Bush led to some significant triumphs. For the first time since Clinton first came to power 14 years ago, we are definitely in opposition --- coming out of our “thumpin’” in the 2006 elections, all the momentum and energy in Washington has currently shifted to the Democratic side. The next few months will help to determine whether Republicans and conservatives will fight the good fight over issues that matter or dissipate all chance of a return to power through in-fighting, defeatism and self-marginalization. Given the stakes involved with some of the current battles in Washington and around the world, how can any grownup, responsible activist justify focusing on black-helicopter-style threats like the border-dissolving, sovereignty-ending North American Union –- which no elected leaders of administration officials have ever endorsed?

Where, in the past, have conservatives succeeded in building majorities by concentrating on “secret plans” and “high level plots” by their fellow Republicans?

And this brings me to the unfortunate Jerome Corsi, who felt the need in his response to my scorn to bring up some long-ago misunderstanding between us in which he believed I had charged him with anti-Semitism. As I communicated to Corsi in a telephone conversation, I did not recall making that charge on the air and I still don’t believe I ever attacked him in that manner. If I had even hinted at Jew-hatred on Corsi’s part I was willing to apologize, I said.

But now that he’s brought up the long-dead matter once again, I went to the trouble of looking up some of his controversial (and profoundly embarrassing) internet postings from FreeRepublic.com that were publicized in 2004. One of them (03/04/2004) attacked “John F**ing Commie Kerry” as follows: “After he married TerRAHsa, didn’t John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? (sic). He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?”

Given the fact that neither Kerry nor his wife (either wife, for that matter) ever practiced any form of Judaism (or “Judi-asm”, which might be a form of Judi worship), and given the fact that Theresa Heinz Kerry has never had any connection whatever to the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, and given the fact that Kerry himself has been a well-advertised, professing Catholic all his life, doesn’t Corsi’s snide little comment about Kerry’s “reverting” to the faith from which his paternal grandparents converted, give off unmistakable, fetid whiffs of anti-Semitic obsession?

In the same series of comments he also wrote of the beloved and revered Pope John Paul II: “Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn’t reported by the liberal press” (03/03/2003) and “We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that’s probably about it.” (12/16/2002).

And now this same angry, venomous, irresponsible figure wants to be taken seriously when he warns of the looming, desperate danger of North American Union. He insists that he is utterly disinterested and selfless in promoting this grand conspiracy theory--- but then the final line of his posting gives the lie to this preposterous pose. That line announces about Mr. Corsi: “He will soon author a book on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and the prospect of the forthcoming North American Union.”

I have no desire whatever to help him promote his latest book which is why I won’t invite him as a guest to debate these issues on my radio show. If he wants to call in (with other members of the public) to make whatever points he chooses to make, he’s welcome to do so on the one national talk show that identifies itself as “Your Daily Dose of Debate” and we’ll move him to the front of the caller line. The phone number, Mr. Corsi (toll free, by the way) is 1-800-955-1776.

And concerning his challenge to me to debate him publicly and formally over his poisonous obsession over phantom dangers, I’ve never in my life turned away from a rhetorical challenge, and I’m not about to do so now. If Corsi wants a debate (over a non-issue that I don’t believe is even worthy of serious discussion) I’m willing to join him if he arranges an appropriate venue and I can participate without incurring debilitating travel or personal expense.

If this sort of confrontation can flush out fringe-figures like Jerome Corsi from the dank, turgid conspiracist fever-swamps he chooses to inhabit, it may perform an important hygienic purpose in returning the conservative movement to the robust health it needs for the serious battles that lie ahead.

Today I spent a few minutes listening to another nationally syndicated talk radio show and felt outraged and embarrassed to hear the guest host (an otherwise bright and well-informed conservative) facilitating the twisted, ignorant mounting public hysteria over the looming menace of a “North American Union.”

This paranoid and groundless frenzy has been fomented and promoted by a shameless collection of lunatics and losers; crooks, cranks, demagogues and opportunists, who claim the existence of a top secret master plan to join the U.S., Canada and Mexico in one big super-state and to replace the good old Yankee dollar with a worthless new currency called “The Amero.” Another delusion usually associated with these fears involves the construction of a “Monster Highway” some sixteen lanes wide through Texas and the Great Plains, connecting the two nations on either side of the border for some nefarious but never-explained purpose.

Actually, I am afraid of wasting government money on useless mass transit or light rail projects, but I’m hardly terrified by road-building. Any time they want to build super-highways and lay down old-fashioned asphalt to facilitate cars and reduce traffic, every red-blooded American ought to stand up and cheer—especially when the construction takes place largely through private financing.

But aside from the chilling prospect of a “Monster Highway” (why is a new road in Texas supposed to be so scary?) there’s no reason at all to believe in the ludicrous, childish, ill-informed, manipulative, brain dead fantasies about a North American Union. The entire chimera has been conjured up to scare people over nothing—to solicit contributions to fight a non-existent threat, and then when that threat never materializes the exploiters and charlatans who’ve been lying to you about this nonsense can beat their chests and say, “Look at that! We stopped the globalists in their evil, diabolical plans to terminate American sovereignty—now send us even more money!”

I’m sorry to sound cynical and intolerant about this stupidity, but I’m furious, actually – ashamed to be part of a proud medium (conservative talk radio) that increasingly encourages this paralyzing, puerile paranoia. The record couldn’t be more clear on the “North American Union” – there’s no one anywhere near the Bush administration, the Congress of the United States, Cabinet departments or even major think tanks who believes it’s a good idea to merge Canada, Mexico and the U.S. Yes, there was one article in the journal Foreign Affairs that suggested further reducing trade barriers and economic obstacles in the style of the European Union, but that article drew spirited opposition and condemnation from readers of the same magazine and other members of the Council on Foreign Relations. The goal of “North American Union” is far from a policy aim of the Council on Foreign Relations, let alone of the US government.

Concerning the feds, the entire horror story about “North American Union” is based upon the “Security and Prosperity Partnership,” an utterly innocuous, open, above-board, well-advertised and widely publicized initiative to promote inter-governmental cooperation to fight terrorism, the threat of Avian flu, improve and tighten border security, and promote mutual prosperity. The then Presidents of the three countries (Bush, Fox and Martin) met in 2005 to pledge to work together on such issues and to initiate open working groups to facilitate cooperation – BUT THERE WAS NO AGREEMENT OR TREATY OR COVENANT of any kind, secret or otherwise. To find more information about this unthreatening and appropriate project, try going to the website whitehouse.gov, or otherwise checking out government sources (especially the Department of Commerce) under “s.p.p.” to see what’s going on – and what isn’t going on.

The idea that there’s some malevolent, hidden agenda to abolish the USA through working more closely with Mexico and Canada to combat potential flu outbreaks is only slightly less sick and pathetic than the belief that our government orchestrated 9/11, or that Y2K would end civilization as we know it (because Bill Clinton wanted to declare martial law and suspend the election—remember that one?) The same bastards and creeps and jug-heads and drunks and reprobates (yes, they are all of the above) who are now scaring you over SPP or NAU or the Monster Highway were busy 7 years ago peddling the Year 2000 computer bug crapola (which I consistently derided and denied on the air). Did you huddle in fear, expecting blackouts and riots and food shortages on New Year’s eve seven years ago? If you did, don’t you feel embarrassed to entertain these new fears from the same asinine sources?

If those jerks could be so wrong about Y2K, why should you give the slightest credence to their warnings and alarms over this latest hysteria?

Remember when the same miserable cretins tried to frighten the public over the “UN is taking over our National Parks” garbage? They openly predicted blue helmets (and black helicopters, no doubt) at Yellowstone and Yosemite and Mt. Rainier and….. nothing happened. Northing! The world body hasn’t seized the Sequoias or the Grand Canyon because a few American natural wonders were designated as “World Heritage Sites.”

Please remember: the hysterics and fringies who now promote the “secret plan” to eliminate the border with Mexico are the same psychotics who for decades suggested that the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers and the TriLateral Commission and Bohemian Grove and Skull and Bones and the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds were all working together to make sure that Communism took over the whole world. But then, inconveniently for the conspiracists and Birchers, Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher and Pope John Paul and Lech Walesa forced the Soviet Union into collapse and some of the formerly Commie nations (Poland and Hungary and Czech Republic prominent among them) now count as our closest, most valiant allies, and are members of NATO, in fact..

So what happened to the all-powerful conspiracy of international bankers and globalists and commie dictators? Ah yes, they just got the old Soviet Union to play possum for a while but soon they’ll be roaring back (isn’t Putin a former KGB man?) and prove that they’re even stronger than before --- even though the once mighty, now largely dismantled nation has lost more than a third of its population and nearly half its natural resources.

The problem with the demagogues and exploiters is that they make it more difficult – vastly more difficult – for decent people to face the real problems involving our border with Mexico (which clearly, undeniably needs better security and more protection) and to correct the altogether unacceptable outrage of more than 12 million illegals who live and work in the United States in open contravention of our immigration laws.

Yes, we need immigration reform, but if substantial elements of the right become fixated on secret plans for “North American Union,” then they will make themselves irrelevant to the national debate framing and shaping that reform. Paranoia is paralyzing, and leads to powerlessness and marginalization.

In the 26 years I’ve been a conservative Republican I’ve never seen our party and our principles facing greater danger of pushing our ideas and our leaders out of the mainstream, out of the sunlight of sanity and rational discourse and into the fever swamps of sickness and delusion and dementia.

Please – take careful note of anyone in politics (even some “reputable” US Congressmen) or media who gives even a moment’s credence to the “dangers” of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or the North American Union, or the Monster Highway. Write down the names of such people, and remember the names. And then when the fraudulent stories have been discredited or simply disappeared (like the brain-dead, laughableY2K scare, or the U.N. National Parks conspiracy, or the concentration camps and black helicopters that were supposed to menace opponents of globalization), or when the tall tales have morphed into some other attempt to paralyze the unsuspecting public with paranoia, please refer once again to the names on your list of fatuous fear-mongers AND TREAT THEM WITH THE DERISION AND CONTEMPT AND DISREGARD THEY SO RICHLY DESERVE.

No one in my line of work, privileged to earn a living by communicating with the American people, can justify lying outright about non-existent dangers for the sake of ratings or popularity or shock value or “emergency fundraising.”

Where does the money go from such contributions? Usually into the pockets of the blood-sucking exploiters (check out the Washington Times expose of the “Minutemen” as an example). Meanwhile, has anyone heard recently about the “Paul Revere Society,” promoted by a prominent talk host, which was supposed to protect us from a Mexican invasion? It’s disappeared into thin air (and rumored scandal) but what happened to the funds you contributed out of idealism and enthusiasm and well-intentioned commitment?

You may not agree with me on everything I say or report in this blog or on my radio show but I can promise you one thing: I will never lie to you, or pander to your fears, or try to exaggerate dangers when I know better. I will tell you the truth to the best of my ability and I refuse to insult your intelligence with ludicrous conspiracy tales.

Some of my colleagues are dissembling, and they know it, and they ought to be ashamed.

Please take note of who they are and force them, some day soon, to face some consequences.

Peggy Noonan is an eloquent columnist and an insightful conservative but her recent attempt to cut through the national confusion on immigration shows the way that this issue warps the thinking of even normally clear-minded commentators.

In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal she wrote a piece under the heading, “What Grandma Would Say,” invoking the fact that “in most everyone’s family there was a grandma who used to sit quietly in the corner and say nothing. Then someone would ask her opinion just to be polite and she’d say something so wise, so commonsensical it stopped everyone in their tracks. And you realized that she was smart, that she’d lived a life and seen things.”

Okay, with this homey set-up, what is it that “Grandma” wants to say about immigration?

According to Noonan, “I think grandma would say, ‘Stop it. Build a wall. But put doors in the wall so when the problem is over, you can open the doors.’”

Sorry, Peggy, but there’s nothing there “so wise, so commonsensical” that I’m stopped in my tracks.

First of all, nearly all Republicans agree on the wisdom of building a wall (or fence)—and patrolling it effectively, much as the Border Patrol has been able to do with “Operation Gatekeeper” in the San Diego sector. Better border enforcement will certainly reduce the flow of illegals (there’s strong evidence, in fact, that it already has) while enhancing our ability to deal with the problems and challenges presented by the millions of the undocumented who are already here.

But Noonan’s appealingly simplistic posturing ignores two of the most salient facts about the current situation regarding illegal immigrants.

1) Close to half of the estimated 12 million illegals currently in the United States entered the country legally --- and then over-stayed their welcome, violating their visas or otherwise ignoring their obligation to turn in more paperwork, or just generally disappearing into a vast nation of 300 million. In other words, even a totally air-tight wall on our southern border (an obvious impossibility) would block less than half of the current flow. Other entrants would cross over from the all-but-unguarded Canadian side (an increasingly common practice with immigrants from everywhere, including Mexicans and Central America, who get into Canada with little difficulty and then head south) or else enter the country legally, as temporary visitors, and then decide to stay – a practice already followed by literally millions of their predecessors.

2) Noonan seems to suggest that “closing the borders” is as easy as flipping a switch, when there is no practical or realistic way to seal-off the US, reliably, from those who are determined to enter the country. Noonan berates our leaders for “trying to confuse people into thinking they’re closing the borders without actually closing them…It’s not convenient for any of them to close the borders… One wonders why we don’t stop illegal immigration, now.”

Isn’t it possible that “closing the borders” isn’t just inconvenient – but virtually impossible? That we “don’t stop illegal immigration, now,” because even the construction of hundreds of miles of high-tech fencing, and the stationing of hundreds of thousands of border patrol agents and federal troops, can’t halt the human tidal wave as completely as Noonan’s dreams and desires?

Given our current desperate struggle in Iraq, with 140,000 US troops fighting valiantly in an unpopular war, we’ve been unable to “close the border” with Syria or to stop the flow of jihadist combatants into that country. That Iraq-Syria border, by the way, is only a fraction as long as the US border with Mexico. Is our failure to block armed combatants from entering Iraq also because “it’s not convenient” or is that inability based upon the undeniable fact that patrolling hundreds (not to mention thousands) of miles of a desolate desert frontier is a profoundly difficult proposition?

Okay, so what does it mean to “close the borders” anyway? Noonan seems to suggest that it means more than merely blocking illegals – or else why would her “Grandma” suggest that “when the problem is over, you can open the doors.” Surely, Grandma doesn’t mean that at some point in the future we would welcome illegals, does she? So when she suggests we close the doors today until “the problem” is over she seems to suggest blocking all new entrants, legal and illegal alike. That’s the “solution” favored by Pat Buchanan, by the way.

Could we really shut out all immigrants (including the more than half-a-million who enter legally each year) and block all visitors too? Does any sane individual believe that sealing off the United States from all foreigners for some period of time would help our economy or our country? Would we also make it impossible for, say, the Japanese managers and automotive engineers from Honda and Toyota to enter the country to help supervise the new production plants that employ tens of thousands of Americans?

The reason that mainstream conservatives insist on comprehensive immigration reform rather than simplistic sloganeering is their recognition of government’s limited ability to control human behavior. Millions of immigrants seek to enter this nation every year to take the millions of jobs that open up for them in an ever-expanding economy. That doesn’t mean we should abandon all efforts to secure our borders or to take legal, operational control of the immigration we need – nor should we fail to restrict entry for all those with criminal records, or the intent to cheat the system once they arrive. But economic and logistical reality makes clear that a sharp reduction in illegal immigration must accompany some increase in legal immigration – or a guest worker program. If we don’t legalize and supervise some of the newcomers entering the United States, unfilled positions will prove so potent a lure that illegals w