Very much so.  This is a spin to insulate Pao from the damage of her dismissal by invalidating some aspect of it.  You see others in the thread joining that idea and using terms like "Glass Cliff" to insinuate that she was the fall guy but better cause she was a dirty dirty female. This is part buddy politics, part feminism protecting its own (re:Brianna Wu's volcanic eruption a few days ago on ghazi over this).