The Letter of the Day is was "R".

You need to use "R" twice to accurately describe French coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

PARIS - Reporter Alain Hertoghe's book accused the French press of not being objective in its coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. His newspaper fired him.

The book, "La Guerre a Outrances" (The War of Outrages), criticizes the French reporting for continually predicting the war would end badly for the U.S.-led coalition.

"As soon as there were a couple of wounded, of dead, they were talking about Vietnam, Stalingrad," Hertoghe said.

"The French public was so carried away," he said. The journalists, he wrote in the book, "dreamed of an American defeat."

Besides war coverage in La Croix, the book examines that of the independent Le Monde, the conservative Le Figaro, the leftist Liberation and the regional daily Ouest-France, which has the largest circulation in France.

Over three weeks, the five papers carried 29 headlines condemning Saddam's dictatorship and 135 blaming Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

(Hat tip to BigWig)

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