I’ve got my priorities in order, Derb. I care less about becoming Secretary of Defense than about our gloom-off. So even if it means forfeiting your support for the secretary’s chair, I must charge you with…unreasonable optimism. There, I said it, even knowing that no accusation could hurt you more.

The president’s problematic views on immigration are precisely what make the prospect of a Democratic House so dangerous. On many issues, the president could, and would, veto liberal legislation. But with the Senate and the president already on board for a bad immigration bill, a change in the House is all that’s needed to turn that disastrous bill into law.

So the issue you care most about is the one issue on which a Democratic House is virtually certain to mean legislative action for the worse. And you know better than anyone how little likelihood there will be of undoing that damage once done. So I would recommend redeploying your considerable gloom resources and focusing them, not on the enforcement laggard that is, but on the disastrous bill that will be if we kill off the Republican House, the only body standing between an immigration stalemate and the outcome you say you dread.