Sorry, Jim; I think it's not that much of a stretch. They said that (a) it's a DNS problem, (b) they don't understand the cause, but (c) they don't manage the DNS, ICANN does. OK -- the problem is therefore in a piece they don't manage, so they're not at fault. But ICANN *does* manage it (or so the direct quote says). There's a decent implication there that the manager is at fault, though not (of course) a direct statement. I would also note that the article quotes De Jonge as saying "The *Internet's* Domain Name System (DNS) does does not return the correct response when it is queried for a Microsoft Web site" [emphasis added]. In other words, it's not *Microsoft's* DNS servers, it's the "Internet's".
You overlooked the prime facae error. ICANN most certainly does NOT manage the DNS. The US Department of Commerce does. That's actually been proven in court.