AceofSpades Nails It:
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.”
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/378796.php
He needs to show Mattis the door tomorrow. Let the Asst. Sec. def take over. Mattis is back stabbing POS ( but we knew that already ).
“It could be that he is. I think he’s sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth. But General Mattis is a good guy, we get along very well. He may leave, I mean at some point, everybody leaves.”
So this is likely what happened in that long back and forth over Afghanistan.
The Deep State kept not giving Trump what he wanted.
It was interesting reading your analysis of way options are presented. I would be very surprised if Trump fell for that trap.
He should say, “Give me Option A, but modify it like this...”.
Similar to the Excluded Middle