I know Linus was pushing back REAL hard on getting a fact checker. And it would've likely prevented this situation entirely.
Edit: Other than the pushing of merch... Sigh... This is a pretty good PR mea culpa. At least from the rest of the team. I guess I should finish it. Pretty textbook. "We screwed up, here's how we're fixing it."
Edit 2: Nevermind. I got to the part with Linus. FFS.