Sunfish, you are doing well to have picked the socio's around you and your post is highly accurate and your understanding is superb. Weloveseaplanes has also got a good grip on socio behaviour.
It is extremely difficult normally to pick a socio due to their covert nature. To coin a phrase Socio's are the most dangerous of all assassins. They don't take you out in a split second with one bullet, they prefer slow methodical dissection over years before banging in the final nail. There is no satisfaction in a quick kill!
Even scarier when the most senior person(s) in the organisation are socio's. I know of several organisations where the most senior person(s) have PhD's in psychology and are themselves sociopaths. You can only imagine what those organisations are breeding, it's not pretty. Could explain the framework of some government departments.
One might presume that KRudd is a classic example. He exhibits all the traits of such a behaviour. He has the time and resources to support his quest of cutting the red freak off at the knees centimetre by centimetre. Each time he scores a direct hit such as leaking information, embarrassing his assassin, or taking out some of the faceless men or killing off a career prospect he feeds the beast, he gets closer to his final destination and ultimate trophy. No, he won't be satisfied with just her scalp as PM, putting her out of politics altogether is what feeds him, when that day comes he will be relatively satisfied, but the scalps of he supporters in the coup will be his next mission. And so the cycle goes. Socio's are very very patient at times, research the Unabomber - methodical, patient and intelligent, time was never going to be his enemy.
'The Sociopath Next Door' by Martha Stout is good reading, a little frightening, worrying and humorous, but makes you realise there are more socio's among us than we would wish to believe.
Socio's feel no guilt, feel unaccountable and certainly believe that they exist on a plain (or could be plane) well above the rest of society. That is why the things they do are often so outrageous, beyond belief or comprehension, and very hard to understand by those with a sound mind.
It is interesting that Stout writes that up to one in four people may be sociopathic. I just hope those figures don't apply to FF......