A Pennsylvania newspaper apologized Thursday for running a letter to the editor that colorfully called for President Barack Obama’s execution.
The Daily Item, a newspaper based in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, ran a letter on Memorial Day titled “What is a Ramadi?” in which a local man criticized Obama’s approach to the Islamic State terror group.
“To the families of those fallen heros whose blood lies on the sands of Iraq; don’t you think it might be time to rise up against an administration who has adequately demonstrated their gross incompetence?,” Lewisburg, Pennsylvania resident W. Richard Stover wrote. “I think the appropriate, and politically correct, term is regime change. Forgive me for being blunt, but throughout history this has previously been accompanied by execution by guillotine, firing squad, public hanging.”
The Daily Item’s editorial board wrote Thursday that while “no bells went off” when the editor who placed Stover’s letter in the opinion pages first read it, the reference to execution should have been removed.
“Nearly a decade of provocative and divisive rhetoric may have inured us to language that calls the president of the United States ‘the coward-in-chief’ and the disrespectful use of the president’s first name…But we should have recognized that the final two metaphorical paragraphs of the Ramadi letter were inescapably an incitement to have the chief executive of our government executed. They should have been deleted,” the editorial read.
The editorial board added that publishing the letter as is wrongly implied the newspaper found Stover’s call for the President’s execution to be acceptable.
“The Daily Item apologizes for our failure to catch and remove the inappropriate paragraphs in the letter directed at President Obama,” the editorial read. “We will strive to do better in the future.”
The idea that a near decade of hate-filled rhetoric makes one blase about calls for the execution of the President is scary.
Besides, if someone wants to blame the President- they need to blame Bush not Obama.
I call bullshit on the explanation. The Daily Item can’t be so busy that this just slipped by them.
“But we should have recognized that the final two metaphorical paragraphs of the Ramadi letter were inescapably an incitement to have the chief executive of our government executed. They should have been deleted,” the editorial read."
No, you effers – you should have notified the proper authorities and let them decide for themselves if they needed to pay the writer a visit, etc. Good Freaking Fuck - what is the matter with people like you??
American journalism: RIP
Not a single sentence in that letter should have been printed.