The Attorney General’s letter says that he is resigning at the president’s “request,” but that of course is a euphemism. He never had the choice of not complying, or negotiating a different outcome, as he would if this had been an authentic request. Reports say Sessions wanted to stay on at least until the end of the week, but John Kelly hustled him out the door.

It’s a common ruse to disguise orders or commands as requests. Turning the verb “ask” into a noun — “the ask,” “my ask” — is one form this abuse takes. The euphemistic use of “request” is another.  In my work on asking, I’ve given this euphemism a name: Renault’s Hedge, after Captain Louis Renault in the movie Casablanca.

Rick’s Cafe. Captain Renault, played by Claude Rains, tries to mediate between Major Strasser and the resistance leader Victor Laszlo.

The scene seems like a piece of stage business that brings together the film’s main characters for the first time, only to have them arrange to come together at a later date. But the whole scene is a carefully scripted and choreographed negotiation of “authority,” from the soldier’s salute (in recognition of Strasser’s rank) at its beginning to the polite bows at its end. Throughout, witticisms, pleasantries, good manners and the norms of Casablanca cafe society serve as a hedge against Strasser’s power of command. 

STRASSER : I should like to discuss some matters arising from your presence on French soil.

LASZLO: This is hardly the time or the place.

STRASSER: (hardening) Then we shall state another time and another place. Tomorrow at ten in the Prefect’s office, with Mademoiselle.

LASZLO: Captain Renault, I am under your authority. Is it your order that we come to your office?

RENAULT: (amiably)  Let us say that it is my request. That is a much more pleasant word.

LASZLO: Very well.

Renault and Strasser bow shortly.

The improbable thing, of course, is that Renault’s hedge works, at least well enough to end the standoff (and Laszlo is, at this point, no longer sitting but standing face-to-face with Strasser).

It works in part because the film presents Strasser satirically as a striver, a Nazi brute pretending to be a civilized European. It also works because Rick’s Cafe, like Casablanca itself, is a place where the authority of the occupiers can be contested (think only of the scene in which Laszlo leads the singing of “La Marseillaise”). Polite repartee is still possible here: Victor Laszlo can mock Nazi occupation and subjugation to German authority as a “privilege” he has never accepted, and take refuge in decorum (“this is hardly the time or the place”) when Strasser tells him he should like to question him.

At the same time, this recourse to civility is always fraught with jeopardy. Here, it allows Renault to soften Major Strasser’s order, and all but compel Laszlo’s appearance. Renault’s Hedge gives cover to a moral retreat.