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Myth And Legend
- Pecos Bill. On their wedding day, his bride, Sluefoot Sue, tried to ride his horse Widow Maker. Widow Maker throws her off, and her bustle starts bouncing her higher and higher, and she can't stop herself because her wedding dress was made to be removed by her husband, and she's not carrying her knife to her wedding.
You'd Expect: Pecos, being a sharpshooter supreme and a true master of the lasso, would either shoot out the bustle to stop her bouncing, or throw a rope around his beloved and brake her down. This is, after all, a man who can shoot a star from the sky or rope and ride a cyclone. Or, hell, just shoot the horse!
Instead: Pecos shoots her so she won't have to suffer a horrible death from thirst. What An Idiot indeed.
Additionally: It should be noted that the Disney version spares Sue that ignominious fate, instead having her bounce to the moon. You'd think Disney would've given him a happier ending.
Also: Depending on the version of the tale, Bill does try roping her, and misses. For example, in the Disney version Pecos tries to lasso her but his horse Widowmaker steps on the rope and keeps from succeeding.
Tabletop RPG
- Warhammer 40000: in Angron's backstory, he was an escaped gladiator who was trapped with his army of fellow escaped gladiators with a huge army coming at him. The battle barge of the Emperor is in orbit, and the Emperor could probably destroy the army and rescue Angron's comrades in no time.
You'd expect The emperor destroys the enemy army. Orbital fire, Space Marines, doing it personally. You've got a lot of options when you have spaceships, troops, guns and enough Psychic Powers to make the gods themselves run screaming.
Instead he rescues Angron and retreats with his ship, thus killing most of the gladiators and giving Angron a grudge that would later cause him to join the traitor legions.
- In a similar manner, at the start of Warlord Ghazkhull's first invasion of Armageddon, the planet was under the rule of Overlord Herman Von Strab, who was once described as, “the greatest waste of flesh and bone born in the last five hundred years.” So, the Orks start to invade.
You'd expect Von Strab to pull his finger out and deal with it the moment the first hulk appeared - after all these are the Orks, who live for war and aren't really sure how their death-spitting war machines work anyway.
Instead Von Strab sits on his backside, doing absolutely nothing as the Orks happily establish a beachhead. He then sends his army piecemeal to be happily slaughtered, sent out a legion of titans unaided to try and destroy them, then virus bombs the major cities when the Orks get to them. Needless to say, when the Space Marines turn up, they are not happy.
So the idiot becomes a war criminal, and is turfed off of Armageddon.
And then He comes back in the Second War, supported by the Orks, and claims he has divine right to rule over Armageddon. I'm really not sure why anyone believed him, but some did.
Theater
- The Comedy of Errors: One character has been searching for his long-lost twin, and comes to a town where said twin actually lives, causing him to be recognized by everyone and confused with his twin. Mistakes abound, and Hilarity Ensues.
You'd Expect that he'd come to the obvious conclusion: His search is over because his twin lives here and he's just being mistaken for him.
Instead he grows progressively more and more confused about everything that happens, and ultimately concludes that the entire town is full of witches who are tricking him. No one figures it out until the two twins come face-to-face.
Real Life
- Don't know if it counts since we have 2332 years of medical knowledge to look at but when Alexander The Great got sick, his doctors used the medicine of the time. Which was a type of poison. Alexander, un-impressed by the speed of his "recovery", demanded more "medicine". He died shortly thereafter.
- After making a deal with Adolf Hitler for Poland, Stalin basically sat on his ass while German troops massed near his borders. Confident in his "friendship" with Hitler, he ordered troops to not engage. Later, when the Germans got around to attacking, he still ordered his troops to not firing back, for fear of offending Hitler! After the Soviets sustained heavy losses, he finally got a clue, and began the enormously costly campaign against Nazi Germany. And won!
- Hitler is seen as being as big an idiot than Stalin was. Even though Germany's resources were already showing signs of being stretched with all the other campaigns he had started, he just had to take on the guy with a large, untapped resource base who would've been willing to let him continue unharassed if he didn't. Cue Nazi armies being buried under sheer numbers of Soviet infantry and armor. Plus Hitler, like Napoleon, seemed to forget Russia had a, what's that called again...hideous fucking winter.
- However, the purpose of Operation Barbarossa was to capture and exploit the rich oilfields and mineral wealth of the Caucasus, easing the strain on Germany's resources. Defeat of the Soviet Union was a secondary goal, at least at first.
- Which begs the question of why not attack it first?
- Or the other question, why not ask the overly-friendly Stalin first?
- Well, there are some loud arguments about Stalin's plans.
 Some claim Hitler only beat him by a couple of weeks.
- There's also the issue of the Western Allies' desire to "appease" Hitler by letting him have Austria and the Sudetenland. What makes this an even bigger case is that their main goals were not just an effort to avoid war with Germany, but they were aiming to make Hitler an ally against Russia. We all know how that went.
- However, while appeasing Hitler the western allies were at least speeding up their rebuilding and resupplying of defences still weakened by the first world war. Few people thought appeasement would actually work.
- Keep in mind, though, that hindsight is always 20-20. Sure, we know all about Hitler and the Nazi regime now because it's in the history books — but back then, as far as its neighbors were concerned Germany was basically still the nation that had lost the first world war in a big way and was still scrambling to recover.
- Not to mention that the memories of the first world war were still fresh on everybody's mind and anyone who knows how that war went would know that the Allies were justified in trying to prevent another war.
- But still...completely useless at it. Their efforts to prevent Germany from starting another war amounted to a) Disallowing a union with various neighbouring nations; b) Demilitarising the Rhineland; and c) Giving West Prussia to Poland while practically erecting a sign that said "Please invade me". The Paris Peace Conference was far more interested with punishing their ally Russia for its recent Bolshevik revolution. The primary effect of this was to encourage Stalin to agree to the aforementioned agreement with Hitler in the hopes of winning back lost Russian territory in Poland. Even without the benefit of hindsight you'd expect them to get at least one thing right!
- Additionally, Imperial Germany flat-out stated that they would not accept Danzig in Polish hands after the war. While yes, they were beaten, if they wanted lasting peace - which was the point of the peace - they could've bloody well have tried to avoid the worst Casus Belli in history. Danzig had been German since at least 500 years back.
- Jerry Falwell, known for his conservative stance has just died.
You'd expect: The Westboro Baptist Church to acknowledge the fact that every time Jerry Falwell is so much as mentioned, it talks about how he hates gay people—the guy used gays to scapegoat for 9/11. Or at least you'd think the Westboro Baptist Church would do anything other than what's outlined in the next line:
Instead: Fred Phelps releases a statement saying Falwell is going to hell because he supported gay people. Um...huh?
- "Supported gay people" in the sense that he said something along the lines that he believed they should be cured, rather than executed.
- Another example from Fred Phelps: He has somehow stumbled across an article that claims homosexuals are attempting to recruit others in an effort to make the world gay.
You'd expect: He's spend approximately one minute on google or wikipedia to investigate the source, in this case the Onion, which is a parody newspaper. The article was meant as satire, not as fact.
Instead: He uses the article seriously and posts it to expose the "evil homosexual conspiracy", making himself look incredibly stupid stupider.
- Recent example from the sports world: To "minimize the level of inconvenience for Orioles and Ravens fans", the Baltimore Orioles moved the game originally scheduled for Sunday, September 7th, to the afternoon of Saturday the 6th. Which ended up being right when Tropical Storm Hanna was passing through Baltimore. The storm passed in time for the regularly scheduled game that evening to take place.
You'd expect: They'd play the game at its originally scheduled time on Sunday.
Instead: No makeup date has been announced. Their opponents, the Oakland Athletics, are not scheduled to play outside of their own division, on the other side of the country, for the rest of the season.
However: Mercifully, the game is meaningless anyway because neither team has any chance of reaching the playoffs. Still, in the spirit of "minimizing inconvenience", hopefully the Orioles are offering refunds.
- Another World War II example involving Hitler concerns the massive, deadly Panzer tanks Hitler had decreed could only be unleashed on his personal command. When the Allies attacked Normandy on D-Day, the Panzers were ready to be deployed.
You'd expect: The German commanders would radio Berlin to contact Hitler, so he could give the order to deploy the tanks.
Instead: Hitler's cronies didn't contact him, given that Der Fuhrer hated being woken up from sleep and the stooges were too afraid of his wrath to disturb him. As a result, the Panzers sat idly by as the Allied invasion pulverized the German forces. Of course, given Hitler's personality, it's likely he would have refused the request even if his stooges had woken him up.
- Although the Allies had run a successful misinformation campaign to convince Hitler that the real landing was going to be in the Pas de Calais area, so it could be considered a successful intelligence coup on the part of the Allies. Still, they should have woken Hitler to let him know.
- Not as massive in scale as all the WWII examples, but for some reason, a man in the front row at a Tim McGraw concert in Washington State decided to rough up a couple of women sitting by him.
You'd expect: If some guy's going to do something ugly like beat on women, he'd do it in the privacy of his own home, where nobody would see.
Instead: Not only did he do it in public, he did it in the front row of a concert, being given by a big cowboy who's well-known for loving and respecting his wife. Tim and a couple band members grabbed this guy, hauled him up on stage, and held him there, threatening to punch his lights out, until the security guards could arrive and toss him out. Then Tim just went right back to his song, without missing a beat.
- A very different example. Richard Nixon was, by the end of first four years as president, quite popular president and his opponent for the 72' campaign, George McGovern ran a weak campaign.
You'd expect: That, you know, he'd run a clean presidential campaign, make use of his popularity and abilities and win fairly.
Instead: His campaign used dirty tricks and blatantly illegal actions throught, culminating with Watergate. And we all know how well that ended for him... What An Idiot indeed.
Additionally: He named his re-election committee CREEP.
Although: Dirty trick and blatantly illegal actions were pretty much Business As Usual at the time for both parties.
- Whaddaya mean, "at the time" ? :)
- The 2004 US Presidential election had Democrat Sen. John Kerry suddenly see his biggest campaign talking point under attack on two fronts: First by "The Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" - who accused Kerry of lying about his service record. Secondly by the Republican Party attacking him with archival footage of Kerry on the early 70s talk show circuit, decrying his actions in Vietnam - the most damaging of which was his admitting he threw away the combat decorations he'd won.
You'd expect: He'd either defend the latter actions as acts of conscience or apologize for them. As for the former: most expected him to come out swinging against the SBV, challenging them to prove their allegations, drop the ad spots, or prepare for a slander suit
Instead: He refused to address either issue directly, choosing to hammer at the fact that Bush spent the war on a National Guard base in Texas. This had the triple effect of giving legitimacy to the SBV's allegations, make him look like an empty suit - as if the fact that his service record was all he had to draw on vs. Bush, and made him look weak and foolish. Kerry lost the popular vote by a 50%-49% margin.
There Is Also The Fact: That if he'd taken the matter to court, Senator Kerry would have given the defendants the right to file discovery motions requiring the release of his service records. If he had anything at all embarassing in there, whether related to the matter at hand or not, then the one thing Senator Kerry absolutely could not afford to do is put the case in a courtroom. And contrary to reports, Senator Kerry had not released his service records — while he has released extracts from his records to selected members of the press and on his campaign website, the full unredacted transcript has yet to be released. This is as compared to President Bush and Senator McCain, both of whom filed the Form 180 allowing the press to root at will throughout the entire paper pile.
- Both candidates agreed to accept public campaign financing, which imposes overall campaign spending limits. These limits are defined into two segments- before the convention and after the convention; the SBV ads began between the Democratic and Republican conventions, the former scheduled at the traditional midsummer time, the latter the first week of September. Kerry, a creature of political conventional wisdom if ever there was one, thought this was done to get the R convention as close to the 9/11 anniversary as possible and wasn't expecting an attack in the interim.
- The guys who tried to get around smuggling tortoises through customs...by labeling the box "scorpions".
- Brutus, Cassius and their crew wanted the power of Rome to be in the senate's hands again, so they went ahead and killed Caesar to make sure they would get control of the city.
You'd think that Roman senators would a) be aware of the laws of the republic, b) have noticed that Caesar was kinda' popular.
Instead they were completely dumbstruck when the only way to make the assassination legal was to declare Caesar a tyrant, in which case all his legal actions would be nullified. Since Caesar had appointed his assassinators-to-be to their political positions, Brutus and the lot would thereby lose their jobs and new elections would have to be held. And the people were not likely to vote for the people who killed their favorite dude.
- The senate has a history for utter stupidity. It's more or less what caused the fall of the Republic. Let's start with what they kept doing with Pompey, shall we? Sulla takes over Rome, and reforms a lot of things. Pompey, one of his more promising lieutenants, demands a triumph. Here's the thing, Pompey isn't even a senator, and he's way too young. If Sulla gave him a triumph, he'd be essentially undermining his own reforms.
You'd think that he'd simply refuse. Yes, he's a promising general, but STILL.
Instead Sulla gives him the triumph anyway, and creates a precedent for others to follow. Nice job breaking it, Sulla.
- Now, let's take a look at what the senate does after that. Pompey starts demanding more powers, gained extraordinary commands and creating more precedents, it was amazingly impressive at the time for the Romans. And before long, tribunes propose the lex Manilia and lex Gabinia, both of which would give him extraordinary powers. And it's the senate who gives him those powers, even though it completely contradicts their principles.
You'd think that the senate would say "no" to him sometime.
Instead, they keep giving him more power. When Pompey comes back from his eastern conquests in 61 BC, the senate finally decides to stand up to him and shafts his bills. Unfortunately, they do this at the worst possible oppertunity. Their behavior proceeds to piss off Crassus and Julius Caesar as well, and the three men form the First Triumvirate, and you guys know the rest. Some of the sources who were there at the time admitted that, in hindsight, rejecting their bills and stuff, which forced them together, was the worst possible idea. Way to go, senate.
- Mark Sanford, the Republican governor of South Carolina and rumored to be a potential 2012 Presidential candidate, acknowledges after having disappeared the previous week from office, that he has been part of an extramartial affair.
You'd think Sanford would either acknowledge what he did was wrong, apologize to his wife, children and the residents of South Carolina for skipping the country and possibly step down from office.
Instead he steps down...as head of the Republican Governors Association, and attempts to defend the trips, though he eventually said he planned to reimburse the state for another trip.
On top of that, e-mails are released referring to this other woman as "his soulmate", and Sanford seemed to continue to keep talking about it.
- As Jon Stewart put it, "God killed Michael Jackson for you, and you gave an interview!?"
- Telecommunications company Telstra:
You'd think they'd be damn glad people were paying their bills in person, since they are, well, paying their bills.
Instead they've decided to start charging anyone who pays their bill at Telstra shops, post offices, or by mail a fee. For paying their bills.
Worth Noting that this is exactly what every other regular payment company has done, except they've marketed it as a discount for using direct debit, a.k.a the one option not in the above list.
- The many examples on Not Always Right.com.
You'd think, in general, those people would have at least some common sense.
Instead, they just ramble on doing what they think is right.
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