[TremendousJudge]

Hanlon's razor applies here I think. Don't attribute to "the enemy" what can be adequately explained by incompetence.

[mnadkvlb]

Maybe. but existance of leaders like Gerhard Schröder displays a different story.

(he is sitting on russian gas companies’ boards, after heavily going against nuclear). No shit the leaders failed the country for their own gains, seems like.

[barrenko]

The incompetent and the corrupt and more often than not the same person.

[lallysingh]

They don't know what the right answer is, but they know the answer that gets them paid.

[chrisdhoover]

I think you just made a statement that should be repeated often and attributed to you. Barrenko’s corallary or something. Somebody help me with the name. I want see this used and a Wikipedia entry on it

[lallysingh]

Be careful. Incompetence is an almost infinite sink for blame, and it's easy to misattributed to it what really belongs somewhere else.

[anamax]

Incompetence doesn't have a bias. Malice does.

More to the point, Hanlon's Razor is usually an excuse to do nothing, which is a mistake.

It's better to assume that people intend the likely outcome of their actions. If they want to claim stupidity/incompetence as a defene, that's on them.