One of McClatchy's "It's a civil war, it is, it is!" editors leaves McClatchy

David Westphal, McClatchy's editor, is leaving McClatchy. His wife has a new gig teaching journalism (what else) at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California, so he is leaving McClatchy and heading to California.

Westphal was one of McClatchy's spokesmen when McClatchy made a big deal about referring to the Iraq war as a "civil war."

Here is Drama Queen Westphal's emotional statement in 2006:

"What's going on in Iraq is so awful that a dispute over whether the term is `civil war' is innocuous to me,'' Westphal said. "The facts of the carnage, of the strife there are so profound that civil war doesn't quite even cover it.''

This was one of the "look-at-us" stunts McClatchy has pulled over the past few years. When they thought they could get attention by using "civil war" they did. But when conditions changed and the Iraq war was obviously not a civil war, they hid in the tall grass, never publicly changing their position.

Related:

• Does this man think Iraq is still in a Civil War?
• Another 2006 McClatchy flashback: "Iraq is in a Civil War"