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A Carson staffer apparently spoke to CNN's Chris Moody, resulting in Moody's tweet:

Carson won't go to NH/SC, but instead will head home to Florida for some R&R. He'll be in DC Thursday for the National Prayer Breakfast.

It was perfectly understandable that Cruz's staffers and others interpreted that to mean that Carson was dropping out. That's how I would have interpreted it.

If we're assigning blame for this kerfuffle, much of the blame should go to the Carson staffers who gave Moody that information, and/or to Chris Moody for writing an ambiguous tweet that appeared unambiguous.

After the tweet was read by the Cruz staffers, they decided to run with their reasonable but incorrect interpretation rather than verifying that it meant what they thought it meant. In retrospect that was a mistake, but that's all it was. It certainly was not a vile campaign stunt personally orchestrated by Ted Cruz that somehow deprived poor Ben Carson of his chance to be president. Carson's chance was already long gone.

Yes, Moody issued corrections to his tweet not long after he posted it, but that does not mean that Cruz's staffers knew of those corrections, nor does it mean that Cruz personally knew of those corrections, nor does it mean that it the Iowa results would have been significantly affected had the Cruz campaign immediately broadcast those corrections.

Cruz's apology was appropriate, but Carson should have been gracious and dismissed this mess as an understandable mistake.