It's actually not a whopper of a lie. January...globally...was very warm. The problem people have with the warming issue (on both sides of the debate) is keeping perspective. All people tend to think what is happening to them is happening to everyone.
Did you watch the Olympics? See all the concern for the lack of snow? It's because it was very warm in the northwest. It was also EXTREMELY warm in the arctic (and that is a really large area). The reason most of us were so cold was because of the blocking pattern over the pole dumping all the arctic air southward into North American, Asia and Europe. Greenland, OTOH, was very warm. There were days where it was 45-50 degrees in the heart of Greenland...in JANUARY! That was because of the blocking. The Southern Hemisphere was also warm...due to the El Nino.
So...globally...it really was warmer than normal. That warming has nothing to do with AGW...but with the natural cycle of a positive NAO combined with an El Nino and extreme blocking over the poles.
One consequence of the polar blocking: The ice sheet really grew over the winter (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png)
It is way above the low tide mark and back to within 2 standard deviations. I do suspect a lot of that will melt though given its 1 yr ice and that doesn't have a tendency to hang around....but its a start. It won't be ice free this summer...hehe...
Record low temperatures this winter were set all over the Northern Hemisphere - North America, Euope and Eurasia, including both Russia and China.
It's impossible to say "it was very warm" anywhere, if the historical data you're using to measure relative warmth is flawed. And in this case, not only may it be flawed, it may be intentionally manipulated.