Yesterday, a lot of us were stunned by the fact that ESPN decided to pull an Asian sportscaster named Robert Lee from the home opener of the UVa Cavaliers in Charlottesville on September 2. The reason? They were afraid hearing the name “Robert Lee” would be triggering to all manner of, well, ummm, people who would instantly confuse a very alive and very Asian sportscaster with a very dead and very white Confederate general.

As if that were not stupid enough, Reuters has set out to prove that they can make it a lot more stupid.

https://twitter.com/HashtagGriswold/status/900435099564605440

Apparently, Reuters is unclear on the meaning of “doppelganger,” because there is precisely no universe where Robert Lee will be mistaken for Robert E. Lee. And it is also unclear on the concept of “namesake” as it is highly unlikely Robert Lee was named after Robert E. Lee given the middle initial, which is key to separating Robert E. Lee from some tens of thousands of Robert Lees, is missing.

ESPN: Look, we screwed up, and now we will seek to . . . @Reuters: LLLLEEEEEEEEEEEROYYYYYYYY JEEEEENNNKINNNNS [runs facefirst into wall]

— AntifaProvocateurHat (@Popehat) August 23, 2017

Eventually, Reuters gave up trying to un-screw the mess they had created for themselves…and even then they screwed it up. Robert Lee doesn’t have the same name as Robert E. Lee.

CLARIFICATION: Announcer with same name as Confederate General Lee pulled from broadcast; not named after Lee https://t.co/ZY7xOJIjFl https://t.co/PmgCcDhBLW

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 23, 2017

The “namesake” article has disappeared and the link on this tweet

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/900426185083105280

redirects to this story.

Charlottesville shrouds divisive Confederate statues in black cloth