In today’s world, if a pollster asks whether you support bombing someplace with a Middle Eastern name, it is reasonable to assume that you are being asked whether you support military engagement with ISIS, rather than a gotcha question about geography concocted by PPP pollsters to make themselves feel better about their Oberlin degrees.

Think about the absurdity of including the name of a particular city in the question. If I were to ask people whether they supported bombing, say, Mosul, how many people would seriously think to respond, “No, but I would support bombing Sinjar”? We all know that the public at large is neither expected nor claims to have the expertise to make these micro-strategic decisions. So the “dumb” voters who interpreted the question reasonably as a stand-in for their broader policy views responded intelligently.

The real joke is on those who don’t get this because they’re too busy laughing down their sleeves at a cheap trick designed to embarrass Americans who are rightly fearful about the possibility of ISIS attacking us at home.