All it reminds me of Steve Jobs saying A players only want to work with A players. B players hire C players, C hire D and before you know it, you have the politics described in this article.
In my company, I've worked in two departments - one full of highly intelligent folks, and the other full of mediocre ones. In the former, these kinds of politics prevailed. I recall a particular instance where one person was working on a library, and he would actively invade other teams to shut down projects that remotely resembled his - even if his library did not supply all the features the others were building, and even though he had not yet released his library.
In the latter team, people knew they were mediocre, and were much more open to learn because of it. Pointing out problems with their code never triggered their ego.