In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that when faced with puzzling situations, it is better to attribute them to human error rather than intentional deceit.
Charles Krauthammer's quote reflects a critical viewpoint on the tendency to see hidden malice behind political actions. It argues that often, the actions of leaders and governments are more a result of ignorance or incompetence than a sophisticated conspiracy, emphasizing a more realistic and less paranoid perspective on political events.
In practice
During a political debate, to emphasize the importance of evaluating actions based on their outcomes rather than presumed motives.
If you get a call to go to a certain place in the middle of the night to pick up stolen goods, and it turns out the stolen goods don't show up but the cops show up, I think you're going to have a very weak story saying, 'Well, I got swindled here.'
I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking.
The joy of losing consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no disappointment.
You're betraying your whole life if you don't say what you think - and you don't say it honestly and bluntly.
History has blessed us with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with the linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset? How mindless to call the desire to retain it 'racist.
When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.
It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong.
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
What a miserable thing life is: you're in clover; only the clover isn't good enough.
To the extent math refers to reality, we are not certain to the extent we are certain, math does not refer to reality.
It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.
I was wrong, however, to suppose that Sellers thought the world revolved around him. He thought the cosmos did too, and history, and the fates... Like every egomaniac, he behaved as if everybody else spent their day being as interested in him as he was.
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