Partly it's a consequence of the idea – a questionable one – that great art, by redeeming us from "the noise of time", trumps everything, and therefore excuses shabby behaviour.
For too long, we've been blaming the consumer for their desire to eat lots of meat, and therefore excuse the unsafe and inhumane practices at CAFOs, which contribute to environmental degradation, our healthcare crisis and impact the safety of our food.
Hitchcock can therefore be excused for bristling today when he was told of the postgame comments by Devils Coach Larry Robinson.
Intelligence agencies must therefore be excused if they tended to discount the hundreds of recent rocket stories from their usual unreliable sources.
Americans who don't generally pay attention to court decisions, but who tuned in for the health-care ruling, would therefore be excused for assuming that Chief Justice Roberts is no longer an arch-conservative but a centrist who's pulled the court to an ideological middle-ground.
For every critical disavowal of Chris Brown or Jef Whitehead in light of their horrible treatment of women, there is a case like Michael Gira or Dr. Dre, whose alleged abuses briefly make the news before getting more or less swept under the rug and therefore tacitly excused.
We have therefore to excuse the omission of this critical experiment.
We, however, believe authors have an academic duty to respond to substantive criticism of their work and therefore cannot be excused because they were not asked to do so by an editor.
Inter, therefore, would be excused to delay such a significant decision until the end of the season but make no mistake, the self-assured Icardi would have no qualms with pushing ahead with what he perceives best for his personal progression.
Having won his bet, he calls infidelity a "necessity of the heart", and says that he therefore wants to "excuse" the infidel.
