This is the convenient excuse to save face.
Something went on.
It can’t be any more clear than when you saw Philbin distance himself from Alan’s more “radical” ideas.
At the time I said right here I wish he wouldn’t have said that..
Something definitely went on.
Philbin distanced himself from Dershowitz simply because the “optics” of Dershowits’s statement were bad but in fact made perfect sense to anyone with a bit of reading comprehension.