6 Dumb Ways Companies Tried to Excuse Their Own Idiocy

Have you ever done something stupid and scrambled to make up an excuse? "I'm sorry, I was drunk," or, "I thought that was legal in this country," or, "Wait, this isn't a David Lynch movie?" Turns out, big companies do the same thing, only their excuses tend to be way worse because they can't all be drunk ... right?

#6. A Political Blog Targets the Wrong Person, Issues Lame "Correction"

Conservative political blog Breitbart.com recently published an article decrying the president's newly announced nominee for attorney general of the United States, Loretta Lynch. According to Breitbart, Lynch had a previously unmentioned controversy: she was one of the lawyers who represented the Clinton family in the wake of the Whitewater scandal.

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A scandal so boring, we fell asleep twice trying to think of a joke for it.

The reason it wasn't mentioned by any other news outlets? Because that lawyer was a completely different woman who just happened to also be named Loretta Lynch. Whoops. So Breitbart did the smart thing and retracted the article, then issued a quick apology to both women.

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"We'd also like to apologize to Olivia Jessica Simpson for last week's 'NFL Murderer' story."

Just kidding! Of course they didn't do that, because it's a political blog and this is the Internet. Instead, they left the article exactly the same and issued a "correction" that simply stated that the entire thesis of the article (that Obama's attorney general nominee had a secret history of helping cover up political scandals) was totally not true. And they put it at the very bottom of the article, which, if you'll notice, is a handy way of admitting they're wrong while simultaneously not really doing anything about it. They eventually did take it down, but only after many chortles were had.

#5. Urban Outfitters Sells Shitty Shirt, Pretends Everyone Is Stupid

Even if you weren't alive when it happened, you've probably at least heard references to Kent State and the disaster that happened there in 1970. Basically, the National Guard fired on some Vietnam protesters, killing four students and wounding nine others. It's the source of that iconic photograph of a girl screaming beside a dead protester.

John Filo
This one.

Point is, it's still a huge sore spot in our nation's history. So what goes through your mind when you see this Urban Outfitters "vintage" sweatshirt that they recently put up for sale?

Urban Outfitters
"Uh, maybe we should cancel the Penn State shirts for next month."

It's pretty obvious what they're going for, right? Well if you think that, you're apparently wrong. After receiving a ton of flak for selling the shirt (at $130, no less), Urban Outfitters released a statement on Twitter claiming it was all just an unfortunate coincidence. "It was never our intention to allude to the tragic events that took place at Kent State in 1970," they said. "The red stains are discoloration from the original shade of the shirt and the holes are from natural wear and fray."

You'd need a pretty big truck to haul that much bullshit. Urban Outfitters apparently thinks that most of the Internet is completely dumb and that that's somehow a reasonable apology. They could have just been honest and said, "Hey, we made a stupid shirt that we thought you were all too stupid to get angry about, but you did and now we're going to pretend that you're stupid because we're stupid. Stupid." But what do we expect from a company that sent out an internal email encouraging employees to get racist for their Christmas party?

Urban Outfitters

#4. Walmart Says That It's Tracy Morgan's Fault That He Got Injured

Back in June, an overworked, sleepy trucker crashed into Tracy Morgan's limo bus, injuring him (and several others) and killing his friend and fellow comedian James McNair. The driver, Kevin Roper, had been driving for 13 and a half hours straight at the time of the crash and admitted to being drowsy. It's pretty clear-cut whose fault this was, right?

Not according to Walmart, Roper's employer. You see, Walmart's lawyers have claimed that none of this would have happened if Morgan and his friends had been wearing their seat belts. Their overworked driver, whose employer hadn't taken steps to ensure that he was properly rested and whose truck caused 100 percent of the accident, wasn't the primary cause of the injuries. Nope, that shit was all Morgan's fault.

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"Remember, he did Cop Out."

Now, it sounds reasonable on the surface. You get injured less if you're wearing a seat belt. Duh. The problem is that Walmart is arguing that that means they're not liable at all for the crash. But let's keep in mind that the driver was going 65 mph in a massive truck while half-asleep. Seat belts are only going to help so much, Walmart. Not being hit by a truck is an even better way to prevent injury and death.