The machinery of government is a vast series of interlocking hierarchies riddled through and through with incompetence.
The devil could change. He was once an angel and may be evolving still.
An optimist is one who makes the best of it when he gets the worst of it.
The man who believes he can do it is probably right, and so is the man who believes he can't.
If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again.
There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.