As polling methodology, the phrasing of the question begins "[i]f you had to choose," a dead giveway of a setup question that simply is unsound. The results were not surprising. The trustworthiness of politicians versus the military has always been and always will be a mismatch. Indeed, the fact that the military only got a 68% finding, to 21% for a failed Congress, and 5% for the worst, most mendacious President in history, is actually quite a bad finding for General Petraeus specifically, and the military generally. The politicization of the military that such figures as Dick Meyers, Peter Pace and Petraeus have engaged in has greatly damaged their credibility. Consider previous trustworthiness findings. On general trustworthiness, in 2006, 72% of Americans said they would trust military officers while just 35% would trust members of Congress. But in a head to head now, the military does worse now against one of the least trusted groups of people in the country.

The lack of trust in General Petraeus in particular was underscored by, via Drum, a Washington Post poll that found that a majority of Americans do not believe that General Petraues will be completely forthright in his testimony and instead will try and defend his policy by fudging the facts.

In short, this is a shoddy piece of journalism that can not be explained innocently. I do not want to ascribe motives to the New York Times news pages, but either there is complete incompetence or some other explanation for this atrocious work.