It’s easy to state the position of most Republicans on the issue of immigration:

• They want the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants to go or be sent out of the country (presumably back to their home countries).
• Thereäfter, they want future entry to be determined by some notion of the general interests of those who are already citizens.

It is harder to state plainly what practical policies most Democrats want.

As a practical matter, open borders cannot be reconciled with access to state subsidies of services such as education and health-care, let alone to a more general dole; there simply isn’t and wouldn’t be enough wealth within the United States. One possible resolution is to allow anyone entry, but to deny entrants any state subsidies; they or private charity would have to pay for everything. This resolution would not satisfy those who have further objections to immigration, but it is in any case a non-starter; when constituent states have tried to limit unauthorized immigrants to emergency services, the mainstream of left-wing activists has denounced the restrictions as racist violations of fundamental human rights, and courts have sided with those activists.

A large number of Mexican-Americans would like other Mexicans to be able to come here fairly freely; fewer would extend such welcome to the entirety of Latin America, and far fewer Hispanic-Americans would embrace such freedom for Asians and for Africans. I doubt that most Hispanic-Americans would appreciate a wave of Eastern Europeans.

(By giving preference to those who already have family members in the United States, present immigration law is designed to mollify both the my people but not those people crowd and those who don’t want to compete against immigrant workers. It is much easier to get admittance for a grandmother as such than for an engineer as such.)

Many activists would like an amnesty for those presently in the United States in violation of immigration law. Opponents note that an amnesty now would raise hopes for another later, increasing the incentives for unauthorized immigration; and there is an obvious question of how (if at all) to compensate those who queued legally while recipients of the amnesty entered without authorization. Some critics insist that there would be a significant increase in other sorts of law-breaking, should punishment be waived for unauthorized entry. And, in the absence of an over-haul of entitlement programmes, any amnesty would significantly increase access to state subsidies, in an era where some constituent states are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the Federal government is running unsustainable deficits, and a majority of Americans already believe themselves to be over-taxed. Little-if-any response to these objections has come from the Democratic coälition; indeed, many activists on the left explicitly assert a need to give unauthorized immigrants greater access to entitlement programmes.

The President’s style of leadership concerning major issues has been to propose rather vague and general objectives, then leave it to the Democratic Congressional leadership to actually formulate practical proposals. He’s been pressed to do more than hand-waving on immigration, but he has nothing to say. His supporters cannot hold together and be honest with each other. Many of them cannot even be honest with themselves. And they cannot be honest with the rest of America. Small wonder, then, that the President flinched. (Yet I admit to being momentarily taken-aback when I read what he had said.)

(My own position isn’t at all popular either, but it is consistent and I can be honest about it. It’s the aforementioned non-starter. I believe that anyone who is not shown to be a criminal should be permitted entry to the United States, but should be denied all net state-subsidies. I’d run an electrolytic current through the Colossus, so that she shined like a new penny.)

There’s a saying that reäctions depend upon whose ox gets gored, but they also depend upon whose bull does the goring. Had such a programme been suggested by a high-ranking member of the previous Administration, the main-stream media would have directed considerable attention to it and to objections. There are people who will be quite silent now, or will even defend the proposal, who made a habit of furiously denouncing that previous Administration for the mere possibility that it might do such things when third parties suggested that they would.

The Gallup Organization has acknowledged that the President’s disapproval rating and approval rating are now matched, at 47%. I am highly skeptical that it took until now for that to happen.

[Correction and Up-Date (2010:01/24): It seems that initial reports were slightly off, that Gallup reported a 48% approval level and 47% disapproval level. And to-day they report both as simultaneously holding steady, skating against each other. (2010:01/25): Well, no, the Gallup Orgainzation indeed had them equal in their report for 20-22 Jan; then they showed his approval rating ticking up to 48% while the disapproval rating held steady.]

The Financial Times explains that things are almost certainly going to become more awkward for the President. The Republicans smell blood; moderate Democrats feel more free (or obliged) to say no. The Secretary of the Treasury is enmeshed in scandal over his actions when with the Federal Reserve; the Chairman of the Fed may not have the votes for reconfirmation.

I’d note other things. Unemployment has stayed high; some of the President’s defenders say that there isn’t much that he can do about that, but he and his party hugely increased the deficit on the claim that they could, with few people now believing that the money were well spent. The American automotive manufacturing industry has no real prospects for long-term health. The two wars that so many voters expected to be neatly or quickly resolved (one of which Obama said must be fought to victory) are still grinding-up American soldiers. Russia and China want Iran to continue to be a problem. The Guantanamo naval prison is still unclosed, and the ACLU has denounced the plan to continue holding prisoners without trial once they are relocated. Skepticism about anthropogenic climate change is growing, and supposed points of no return have been passed. The world still treats America with disdain, and much of it is on the cusp of telling us that Obama is a failure or that he’s better than we deserve or both.

It is very likely that the Gallup Organization will one day report that this President’s disapproval rating has passed 50%.

In my previous entry, I noted that, as the Gallup report of the President’s approval rating approached 50% from above, there was an asymmetry in its perturbations, that it skated the 50% line, without blipping below it, for an extended interval. And I noted that, as the disapproval rating approached the approval rating from below, it tentatively seemed to be displaying a complementary asymmetry, plateauing when it might be expected to rise further.

Indeed, that reported plateau was stretched for a full week. If you’ll look at the previous reported figures for the disapproval rating, you’ll see nothing like it.

The news noted a few days ago that, according to the Gallup Organization, the approval rating for President Obama had fallen below 50%.

I’ve been watching the Gallup poll (along with other polls) for some time now, and had become increasingly doubtful of its reports. As the rating approached the 50% line, an apparent asymmetry developed in the perturbations, to which I refer as skating. This skating was at its most pronounced when the rating would hit the 50% line; it might blip up, but it would not blip down.

The Gallup Organization has referred to the President’s drop below the 50% line as symbolic, but in a nation that likes its decisions made by majorities or by super-majorities, and with the President being of a party that named itself for democracy, having less than majority approval is more than merely symbolic.

The next milestone comes if-and-when the reported share of the population who disapprove of the President’s performance exceed those who approve. The Gallup Organization has reported the disapproval rating being as high as 44%, and as generally climbing. But, guess what? For the last few days, even as the President’s approval rating has been admitted to have dropped below 50%, the disapproval rating has been reported as plateauing, as if the loss of approval completely translated into indifference or indecision. Perhaps we are now going to see a sort of complementary asymmetry of reported perturbations for disapproval.

(The third milestone would be when the disapproval rating climbed above 50%.)

The short-term result of the Nobel Committee giving the Peace Prize to President Obama will probably be to increase his political capital in some amount (in a context where polls shows his domestic approval trending downward and at or below 50%). In the long-run, this award will prove damaging to popular American perceptions both of Europe and of the Democratic Party.

American perceptions of Europe will suffer, because the only distinctive objectives had by President Obama which enjoy majority support are objectives at which he will not succeed. And American perceptions of the Democratic Party will suffer because it will be seen not simply as seeking the wrong things but as doing so in alliance with alien forces.

Joe Wilson has behaved like a d_mn’d fool, and there’s not much reason to expect him to stop behaving like a d_mn’d fool, but he’s being offered a Golden Opportunity:

A clever politician would agree that such an apology were required, and then proceed to deliver something that were indeed an expression of regret, and impossible to fault on technical grounds, but that wrapped an explanation of Wilson’s ostensible concerns. The apology could be formally very polite and yet a strong declaration of belief in opposition to the President’s programmes. Listeners at all inclined to sympathy for Mr Wilson or to anxieties about the President would have that sympathy or those anxieties greatly reïnforced.

Were I a Democrat then, while I’d generally bet on Wilson’s continued foolishness, I wouldn’t take this particular bet. The chance of losing is quite low, but the loss would be far too great.

In predicting response to the speech yester-day of President Obama, I certainly did not anticipate the outburst by Joe Wilson.

Pericles once noted that the choices of a leader should be informed by the fact that he would not always be the leader.

Our two major political parties need to remember, when in opposition, that their presumption is that they will not always be in opposition. Their behaviors when in opposition set precedents that will be followed by each other party when it is forced into opposition. The next time that we have a Republican President speaking before Congress, there will be less to prevent a Democrat from heckling him or her.

On 9 September, President Obama is to address Congress on health care reform. Here is what I predict to follow:

• The main-stream media will declare the speech to be a sort of triumph.
• In all likelihood, the President’s approval ratings will blip back up over the next few days, and the main-stream media will treat this increase as a trend.
• The approval ratings will begin again to decline, but the main-stream media will ignore the decline until his ratings are at or below the previous low.
• When the main-stream media admit to the lack of an upward trend, it will be to declare the approval ratings to be volatile, as if they are merely oscillating, rather than trending downwards.
• When it can no longer be denied that the President is generally unpopular, main-stream media analysis will largely be of a supposed inability of the American public to be happy with any President, as opposed to an honest examination of the differences between what had been hoped and expected (reasonably and unreasonably) of Mr Obama in particular, and what has actually come under his Administration.