with_items introduces a '#' when using escaped braces

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Using Ansible 1.7.2 on Centos 6.6 (installed from EPEL), I’m trying to execute a command which contains escaped brackets. I get different results when I move the command into an items list. Here it is boiled down to a trivial example:

This works:

- shell: echo special {{ '{{' }} string {{ '}}' }} test

Verbose output shows Ansible executes this:
ESTABLISH CONNECTION FOR USER: root
REMOTE_MODULE command echo special {{ string }} test #USE_SHELL

However, this doesn’t:

- shell: echo {{ item }}
  with_items:
    - special {{ '{{' }} string {{ '}}' }} test

When this same string is executed from a list of items, the resulting command has ‘#’ characters in place of one bracket in each occurance:
ESTABLISH CONNECTION FOR USER: root
REMOTE_MODULE command echo special {# string #} test #USE_SHELL

Anyone have a workaround?