Occam's Razor

No not this, but the philosophy that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". I practice this theory all the time when trying to determine people's motives. Usually I assume that the simplest and most pedestrian explanation is usually the most accurate. I find this to be roughly 92% accurate. An excellent example, on a sunny Thursday afternoon I wasn't answering my phone or returning any calls. A client might assume many things from this behavior, but the simplest explanation is that I had gone fishing, which is indeed what I had done.
When a public figure does something exceeding stupid or harmful it's tempting to think them nefarious when in fact they are usually just stupid and/or lazy. The best line in Scent of a Woman is when Lt. Col. Frank Slade says something to the effect that all through his life when given a choice between right and wrong, he always knew the correct course of action and chose the wrong one. Was he evil? No, like everybody else he chose the easier path. Napoleon once said that men are more easily governed by their vices than their virtues. I find this to be true as well, mainly because vices are more dependable than virtues. If you needed to collect $100,000 in week for a children's orphanage you can call everyone you know and explain the situation and hope they will do the right thing. But you would probably have better success if you told them about the right thing to do and told them their name would be published in the paper as a benefactor of the poor and homeless.