Despite my attempts at humor, I don't think Tom was inept. He did a good job considering that he wasn't Sicilan and was relatively young. Some bad things did happen on his watch, but Tom was just an advisor; for most of his tenure as Consigliere, Sonny was the Don and Sonny would hav been a handful for any Consigliere, even Genco. Also, keep in mind that Vito had trained Tom to be non-confrontational. The novel makes that very clear.
Tom was a smart guy. I Mean i wouldn't judt say sonny because Mike made some real bonehead moves himself. He didn't use Tom as consigliere which really cost him. Lets face it roth pretty much owned mike in part 2. Yes Mike killed him but like tom said it wasn't smart since it could bring more heat to mike
