One of the big talking points in last night’s GOP debate was decrying “political correctness,” and one of the main examples supposedly showing how America’s response to terrorism has been undercut by “political correctness,” brought up by several of the candidates, was the report that San Bernardino terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik posted jihadist messages on social media — but investigators were prohibited from reading their social media accounts due to “political correctness.”

Ted Cruz said, “It’s not a lack of competence that is preventing the Obama administration from stopping these attacks. It is political correctness. We didn’t monitor the Facebook posting of the female San Bernardino terrorist because the Obama DHS thought it would be inappropriate. She made a public call to jihad, and they didn’t target it.”

Well, today the FBI announced that this GOP fear-mongering talking point was flat out wrong; Farook and his wife never posted public messages supporting jihad on social media.

The FBI said on Wednesday that suspected San Bernardino, Calif., shooters Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik did not express their support for jihad publicly on social media, potentially undercutting efforts to ramp up surveillance of foreign travelers’ online presences.

FBI Director James Comey told reporters that there was “no evidence of a posting on social media by either of them” to reflect that they had been radicalized.

The communications instead were “direct, private messages,” the FBI head said during a news conference in New York.

“I’ve seen some reporting on that and that’s a garble.”

I’m sure that since the GOP candidates are honest and honorable, they’ll all come out soon with statements acknowledging they were wrong to use this false report to promote fear and bash the Obama administration. (Yeah, right.)