Murtha Lies, Think Progress Falls For It Hook, Line, and Sinker

From the braintrust at Think Progress:

During an appearance on Hardball, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) slammed the White House for using Petraeus as a political prop. He said the decision to bring Petraeus back to the U.S. for a rare visit last week, days before Congress voted on its Iraq timeline legislation, was "purely a political move," pointing out that Petraeus made numerous media appearances but did not testify before Congress' armed services committees.

And now an injection of reality from CNS News:

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) this week criticized Gen. David Petraeus for not meeting with members of Congress during a recent visit to Washington, D.C., to report on the status of operations in Iraq, but not only did the commander of Multinational Force - Iraq meet with hundreds of lawmakers, he personally briefed Murtha himself.

Murtha told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday, "They bring Petraeus back - purely political move. Petraeus comes back here. He doesn't talk to any of us. He only talks to the news media and so forth trying to sell this program."

But a senior Defense Department official told Cybercast News Service that Petraeus personally briefed Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an April 24 phone conference that lasted 20-30 minutes.

The following day, Petraeus conducted two 90-minute, top-secret level operations intelligence briefings for representatives and senators.

The first, to which all members of the House of Representatives had been invited, was attended by 250 congressmen, and the second was attended by 86 senators. After brief opening statements at the two briefings, Petraeus spent the remaining time answering questions from the congressmen in attendance.

"These were two of the most widely attended operations intelligence briefings in recent memory," the Pentagon official said.

Now, how likely do you think it is that "Nico," Think Progress, or the Congressman himself will admit that he boldly lied to Chris Matthews? Do you think that Think Progress will issue a correction? Do you think Mathews will criticize Murtha for lying to him?

It would be nice, but I wouldn't suggest holding your breath for any of the above to occur.

Update: An attempt to publish the link and an excerpt of the CNS article above to the Think Progress comments thread has apparently failed.