(Image source: U.S. Department of Defense)

BY ALYSSA CARTEE

It was the controversy that wasn’t.

A quick look at Thursday morning headlines and you might have seen -- General David Petraeus apparently thought about quitting over President Obama’s Afghanistan troop draw down. 

Petraeus is the current director of the CIA -- but before that he served as top commander in Afghanistan.

The rumors stem from a forthcoming biography.  The Associated Press got an advanced copy and printed a story with a similar headline. The American Spectator ran with it...

“The salute-and-carry-on instinct is somewhat understandable, and we'll have to see the quotes in context to fully assess Petraeus's reasoning, but it's hard not to wish that he'd gone ahead and resigned. He's right that the political ramifications would have been huge, but they might also have been salutary.”

But Fox News thought reporting Petraeus nearly resigned didn’t sound quite right.

“Gregg, this allegation that he almost resigned is, indeed, new. That has not been previously disclosed. The CIA today is saying that director Petraeus has publicly stated that he never contemplated resignation. But the fact that he had differences to the president and objected to the pace of the draw-down is, indeed, well known.”

But it turns out the initial reports were misleading. By mid-morning Thursday the author of the book, Paula Broadwell tweeted...

"#Petraeus did NOT consider quitting, though mentors/friends encouraged it..."

Cue the new headlines... from “almost quit” to “urged to quit” and even a straight denial of it.

Michael O’Hanlon chided two major media organizations in particular for choosing sensation over context.

“The AP and Politico should have resisted the temptation for a juicy but completely misleading headline and been more careful. We have enough real debates in Washington; we don’t need invented scandals.”

The book is called All In: The Education of General David Petraeus is set to be released in January.