My amazing father, whose memory now darts in and out of the conversations like a hummingbird, had a saying when he worked for the Federal Government. He spent his whole life after law school nudging the tail of the elephant to do good as a bureaucrat in the Executive Branch. One of his colleagues shared his saying with my sister and me when we became old enough, namely:

“Given a choice between a conspiracy and a fuckup, always choose a fuckup.”