"No fair!" cries the L.A. Times. While NBC and MSNBC received all the attention – beginning, and we hoped ending, yesterday – for calling the Iraq debacle a "civil war," the embroiled Tribune Co. rag points out that it began calling last month! "Without public fanfare," even.

NBC's decision, which came after a particularly deadly series of retaliatory attacks in Baghdad, makes it the first television network to officially adopt the term "civil war," a description the Bush administration has resisted.

The Times was the first major news organization to formally adopt the description when it began to refer to the hostilities as a civil war in October, without public fanfare. No other major media outlet has made the phrase a matter of policy, although it has cropped up in various news reports.

Though with so much effort defending planned job cuts at the paper and a revolving door of editors and publishers, it's surprising to see the LAT was even able to get their whine across the wires. (Just like CBS!) And, to be fair, doesn't Time (and every lefty political blog out there) get some credit for at least calling it a civil war in foresight?*

(* Yes, we know it's a spoof cover, and it has a typo. That it's a spoof is sort of the point.)