Deadline reported yesterday that not only has HBO issued an apology for the George W Bush mask being used as one of the heads on a spike at King’s Landing in Game of Thrones, but now they’ve gone a step further and removed that nth of a second shot from the show itself on iTunes and HBO Go.

AND, they’ve halted production on the DVDs that feature the showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ commentary that brought the whole issue to light in the first place.

AND HBO issued another even more contrite apology:

“We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste…We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this careless mistake. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms and have halted all future shipments of the DVDs, removed it from our digital platforms and will edit the scene for all future airings on any distribution domestic or international.”

This seems to be getting a wee bit out of hand. I mean, had it not been pointed out, who would have known about the mask? You get the sense that Weiss’s and Benioff’s commentary was more of a “hey, here’s a random fact about this show you love that will give you an inside scoop into how it gets made” rather than “let us be seditious and bring up political wounds that are no longer getting any play in today’s media circus.” I get that HBO doesn’t want to offend, but perhaps it’s time to let the issue die and move on to more important things, like re-dredging up the controversy over the lack of diversity in the cast of their show Girls.