Agreed, that is by far the most likely explanation. What's interesting about his attempted "save" is that (aside from being pure speculation) it just comes off

Agreed, that is by far the most likely explanation. What's interesting about his attempted "save" is that (aside from being pure speculation) it just comes off so... snide. Basically what he's saying is: "Yeah, we kind of cut corners with those people, but you know what? They forced our hand - first by having lukewarm references, and second, for being so damned emotionally fragile and oversensitive to the implicit criticism of having this hard truth delivered to them."