I think this might be your best article so far this year, Steve. I've been around a long time in this field and have witnessed too many "witch hunts". Early in my career to my shame I would sometimes participate in finding the guilty party and assigning blame to them. Later on I became more sympathetic to them, as I was called out on mistakes I had made. I'm not saying call the mistake a "non-mistake", but don't be as harsh as you may be tempted to be.

I will say, though, that in today's culture in which it appears people are actively going about researching politicians, entertainers, athletes, etc. past behaviors, sometimes going back decades, just so that they can call them out on it, punishing them indefinitely and doing their best to make sure that person will never get employed again, it influences all sorts of failure assigning behavior. I really believe it is much harder today to buck that trend, when we deal with people who are not famous.