This is a particularly strange poll question featured in the Times today. It asks, "If you had to choose, whom would you say you trust the most with successfully resolving the war in Iraq?" 68% chose "U.S. Military Commanders," 21% chose "Congress," 5% chose "The Bush Administration," and 3% chose "no one." It's not that I agree or disagree with these results. I just don't understand what the question implies. What does "successfully resolving the war" mean? Does it mean ending it? Does it mean winning it? What makes it successful? And why is trust an issue? We all know that the military is subservient to civilian leadership in our form of government, so in a sense, resolving the war is a political decision. It can be undertaken by either the president or congress. The military offers tactical information and advice but it cannot simply resolve the conflict even if it wanted to because it takes orders from the president.

Interestingly, the sidebar to the article contains other results from this poll. These questions ask pretty straightforward questions about how long we should stay, when we should leave, whether conditions will deteriorate further if we leave, etc. Those numbers actually tell us something about public sentiment. The Times even includes earlier poll results to show how opinion has shifted over time, especially with regards to the perceived success of the "surge." Yet the most meaningless of the poll questions is highlighted, presumably to further bolster the prestige of Gen. Petraeus, who is testifying before Congress today. That is pretty ironic, given that the article notes that

That is almost certainly why the White House has presented General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker as unbiased professionals, not Bush partisans. President Bush has said for years that decisions about force levels should be left to military commanders, although the decision to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq this year and keep them there was not uniformly supported by military leaders. It was primarily made in the White House, and specifically by the president in his role as commander in chief.

If other words, we ought to be skeptical about Petraeus' testimony. This seems to be a case of the Times' right hand not knowing what its left hand is doing. Either that or they have an agenda. I lean towards the more mundane explanation: this was simply a bad editorial decision. And bad editorial decisions, as I've said time and again, lie at the heart of modern journalism's malaise.