We told you Friday afternoon that a West Point investigation concluded that cadets at the Army-Navy game were not flashing a “white power” symbol, but were instead playing the “circle game” (which was obvious to anybody who didn’t want to help make #WhitePower trend on Twitter unlike many in the media and others helped the false rumor spread like wildfire).

Anyway congrats to the mendacious idiots who promoted yet another internet hoax and smeared cadets & midshipmen preparing to defend this nation as racists for playing a made-you-look game during a college football event. I look forward to your apologies.https://t.co/e65vstMdpJ pic.twitter.com/0WusYPtpeS — JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) December 20, 2019

The list of blue checks in the media who should have waited much longer before getting out their Jump to Conclusions Mats included a Baltimore Sun columnist:

Here's hoping some midshipman gets kicked out of the Naval Academy and off the taxpayers' dime if he flashed this as a white power symbol during an ESPN segment for Saturday's Army-Navy game. Same for the cadet who did likewise during the segment. https://t.co/ZyeASn4YmZ pic.twitter.com/cJQcFCIYkD — Dan Rodricks, Baltimore Sun, News Guild (@DanRodricks) December 16, 2019

Then, after the West Point investigation found that it was just a game that was being played in the stands, an approach was taken that’s not uncommon in the Trump era:

Our dark suspicions about this were wrong. Good. But ask yourself: Why did we think the worst? One of the reasons is still living in the White House. https://t.co/n6ZZxt7ixJ — Dan Rodricks, Baltimore Sun, News Guild (@DanRodricks) December 20, 2019

Well, there it is!

Yeah it's Trump's fault that you did this. — neontaster (@neontaster) December 20, 2019

TDS dictates that be the logical next step.

Because you fell for a 4-chan hoax (maybe you wanted to?)

Seriously use this time to reflect. — Sandy 〽️ (@RightGlockMom) December 21, 2019

The ability to bring Trump into literally everything is top notch. “Yeah we were wrong about this, but orange man bad”. — Mike (@MikeGrosso26) December 20, 2019

"I smeared the because Trump lives rent-free in my head" is not an apology — TALES FROM THE WINE CAVE (@FilthPigPDX) December 20, 2019

Naturally, the “block” button is coming in handy:

After rooting for cadets to be expelled over a 4chan hoax and left-wing conspiracy theory, this coward, Dan Rodricks, blocked me rather than delete his defamatory tweet. The @baltimoresun should be ashamed. pic.twitter.com/f2fMdWFQuP — Erik Soderstrom (@soderstrom) December 20, 2019

The tweet blaming Trump could be approaching a ratio record:

You are getting ratioed to the moon! Awesome! — Matthew (@GreatAgainMatty) December 20, 2019

This is impressive:

Other apologies sound a little more apologetic: