Nah, it's just a nice phrase to work out who's backside to kick in the event of a problem!
Unfortunately this is an accident that was easily preventable and there are lots of things for people to learn.
The first one is use some commonsense.
It is a bit bad taste to throw rocks at someone who perished in an accident like this, but looking at the decision making processes and factors that caused this to happen are very worthwile.
My concerns aren't with the decisions made by the pilot. In my eyes he was very inexperienced and was easily lead by others which probably confused the whole go/no go decision.
The CFI should hang his head in shame really. With a forecast and conditions like that, it is criminal that he allowed a flight to go ahead, especially when the pilot was so far out of currency.
Madness and totally unnecessary.