Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to Retire at End of February

Is this about Syria?

It does in fact seem to be about Syria.

By the way, there's a speculation that goes around that I think may be true about Trump's relationship with Mattis, McMasters, etc.

The idea is that they try to Option C him.

That's where you know what the President wants, so you write up three options for him. One is his preferred option. But instead of presenting a reasonable plan for accomplishing his preference, you write it up as Option A, which is planned to be abrupt, sudden, destabilizing, and catastrophic as possible, so that no one would actually pick it, even if they were pre-inclined to.

They you present another Option which is an exaggerated, catastrophic version of what you actually want him to do. This is Option B.

Then you present to him Option C, which is a reasonable sounding version of what you want to do.

So you present him these three options. One's what he wants, but in an unacceptable form. One is a grotesque parody of what you want, which is presented to make the version of what you want, Option C, seem much more reasonable and wise.

It's pretty much a forced choice because you've arranged it so that no one would pick anything except Option C.

The Simpsons Movie did a more primitive version of this.

Anyway, what people speculate is that whenever Trump wants something, they present it in the distorted, catastrophic form of Option A-- the option written up as severely as possible to dissuade him from picking it.

And the further speculation is that he has figured out they're doing this and just says, "Yeah, good -- give me Option A."

Note: I put the last thread into draft because everyone was talking about this story. I'll publish it again later.

posted by Ace of Spades at 05:54 PM

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