Agree...
““my view on this, having been around at the time, was that this was not deliberately misleading. It turned out to be wrong, but it was not deliberate.””
Harmon says... they were not devious... they were stupid and incompetent therefore, as Democrats they should not be held accountable for what they say.
Not quite. The story they put out was a complete fabgrication with no basis in any fact offered then or since. We are being told even though it was known to be false it was not misleading. That leaves an attempt to explain the situation based on what they wished to be true.