True, and I'm going to diverge from the original topic for a bit. Even at Livia's funeral, Junior was supportive of bumping Ralph up to capo based on how well he was doing with Richie's old crew. Putting Gigi as capo was another Tony ego over business decision -- Tony took offense to Ralphie referring to the crew as "his," then Ralphie compounded it with taking Jackie, Jr. to collect from the Arab. After that, Ralphie was slighted and started acting more outrageously. Since the rest of the crew viewed Gigi as an outsider, the crew treated Ralphie as the de facto capo, which put both Tony and Gigi in a difficult spot.
The same things that Tony hated in Ralphie were the same problems Tony had -- poor impulse control, propensity to violence and subverting the Boss' orders. Tony beating Mahaffey in a very public setting was far stupider than what Ralphie did to the Arab. And Tony had no issue going behind Jackie Aprile's back and lying to his face about it -- look at the Hassidic hotel situation in 46 Long.
You make some interesting points, particularly about Tony not liking the same shortcomings Ralph had that Tony himself also had.
Tony did do some stupid things throughout the series that a boss should never do. As early as the pilot, not only did he punch Mahaffey, he ran him over in front of plenty of witnesses. The Bevalaqua hit was even dumber, as was the killing of the rat in "College."
I'm not disputing your statement, but can you explain how Tony went behind Jackie Aprile's back with the Hassidic hotel? What I recalled was Tony & Silvio meeting the hotel owner/son. This occurred after Silvio brought up the situation when they were all visiting Jackie in the hospital. My memory may be faulty, but I felt as if Tony was honest with Jackie about the whole thing (unless he lied about the percentage for the family, which would be par for the course with Tony).
