You concluded with these two sentences:
If this is the case, a Dem Senator took a classified briefing and used it for purely political purposes. To this I say, it wasn't the first and won't be the last time. The modern professional political class sucks, in my not so humble — but rather ticked — opinion.
It would be very interesting to track this lie back in time and see when it went into widespread Dem use. Might take awhile, but I'll give it a shot. Tough to do in-depth research without a Lexis-Nexis subscription. But at least it's not impossible thanks to the Internet.
I think buckhead wrapped it up nicely in post #72.