This far, no farther from the NYTimes

C'mon, NYTimes. Don't frame this as a question. Call it what it is.

It was the White House and the Iraqi government, not Congress, that first proposed the benchmarks for Iraq that are now producing failing grades, a provenance that raises questions about why the administration is declaring now that the government’s performance is not the best measure of change.

Yeah, that's some mystery there. (They would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those nosy kids.)

C'mon, NYTimes. Report it straight. The surge has failed by the White House's own measurements. Why is that not the lede?

(Look at the way the LATimes did it this morning.)