It looks like NBC is moving further and further to the extreme liberal side of things, because on Monday morning Matt Lauer took it upon himself to declare that Iraq was in a civil war:

For months the White House rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. For the most part news organizations like NBC hesitated to characterize it as such. After careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted and what is going on in Iraq can now be characteritized as civil war.

Why not let the people of Iraq decide whether or not they have a civil war, using the tools of democracy that we just gave them? Why should the liberal American media make those decisions for the Iraqi people when they can do it for themselves these days in a good old fashioned election or telephone survey?

And then there was this:

Matt Lauer: The White House objects to the terminology that NBC News is now using, and here is part of the statement that they’ve released: ‘While the situation on the ground is very serious, neither Prime Minister Maliki nor we believe that Iraq is in a civil war.’ It goes on to say that ‘the violence is largely centered around Baghdad, and Baghdad security and the increased training of Iraqi security forces is at the top of the agenda when President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki meet later this week in Jordan. What about that idea, General, that the violence is primarily centered in Baghdad, that the country hasn’t erupted into all-out civil war?

Gen. Barry McCaffrey: I think a lot of that is nonsense. Baghdad is 25 percent of the population of the country. It’s the central battlefield.

Ok, but here you guys are out and out saying that it’s only in 25% of the country, which obviously means that it’s not in the other 75% of Iraq! Wouldn’t a real civil war have to take over the whole country?

Anyway, it’s a pretty laughable thing for NBC to try to claim, and so it’s almost not worth pointing out, except that the rest of the liberal media is just letting it slide of course when they should be confronting NBC about their lies and manipulation of the truth.