"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."
I don't think that's a very good rule overall. It's entirely possible for people be
both incompetent
and malicious at the same time.
Also, people can feign incompetence in order to get away with malicious behavior. Look at how politicians say incredibly stupid things all the time. But most of them aren't actually stupid. They're pretending to be stupid so they can get away with whatever it is they actually want to do.