Funny, I've heard the opposite; from managers, of course :)
As a hacker I'm of course biased, but still I've heard the statement above from a manager in a moment of truth :)
I think there is plenty of bad programmers and bad managers. I don't think either profession is a lot better than the other. (I am a coder and manager)
Except that it's easy for just about anyone to spot a bad manager. A manager who doesn't actually know how to code couldn't spot a bad programmer if they fell into them.