About Those So-Called CONspiracies

"You see it all over. If you’ve been watching the series 'House of Cards' on Netflix, it’s all about the myth of scheming. Things happen because the Rep. Frank Underwood has planned for them to happen. And when they don’t happen, it’s because someone has counterplanned against him.

This is the most pervasive of of all Washington legends: that politicians in Washington are ceaselessly, ruthlessly, effectively scheming. That everything that happens fits into somebody’s plan. It doesn’t. Maybe it started out with a scheme, but soon enough everyone is, at best, reacting, and at worst, failing to react, and always, always they’re doing it with less information than they need.

That’s been a key lesson I’ve learned working as a reporter and political observer in Washington: No one can carry out complicated plans. All parties and groups are fractious and bumbling. But everyone always thinks everyone else is efficiently and ruthlessly implementing long-term schemes. . .

Human beings like to think otherwise, but we’re not very good planners, at least not when matched up against reality."

Read the Washington Post, What China’s hackers get wrong about Washington. 

As I've said before in response to alleged government conspiracies, they're just not that smart.