But the Weekly Standard, which originally reported the groundbreaking news, has hastily withdrawn the report, adding intrigue to the already heated matter.

Reid Wilson at the Capitol Hill rag The Hill reported,

General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. Central Command, will make a high-profile speech in Iowa about a year and a half before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, according to a report.

But is the news true? The “interesting tidbit” reported by the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb “was meant as joke,” Goldfarb said.

It is not clear whether Goldfarb’s about-face is an honest mistake or a hasty retreat from upstaging a later announcement from the Petraeus camp.

Goldfarb says he apologizes for the error. But which error is it?