Tojo's expansive reading of the emperor's consent

Tojo shows the danger in a system where imperial disapproval was often indirect. He treated strenuous imperial questioning as an invitation to improve his argument rather than abandon the policy. He could then report the absence of a direct prohibition as endorsement from the throne. The comparison is George B. McClellan's claim that Abraham Lincoln had praised him after Lincoln believed he had ordered the general to act. Both examples show how a confident subordinate could convert ambiguity into authorization and narrow a superior's practical ability to restrain events.