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Controversial Letter to the Editor Calls For Execution of President

SUNBURY — The Daily Item newspaper in Sunbury published a letter to the editor on Memorial Day criticizing President Obama, going so far as to call for pu...

SUNBURY -- The Daily Item newspaper in Sunbury published a letter to the editor on Memorial Day criticizing President Obama, going so far as to call for putting him to death. The paper published the letter, and now is apologizing for not proofreading a bit better.

The "Letter to the Editor" section is a popular part of a newspaper. So popular, that the Daily Item newspaper in Sunbury is facing heat for publishing one letter on Memorial Day. The letter was written by W. Richard Stover of Lewisburg, and it calls for the execution of President Obama.

Stover writes, "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 publisher for the Daily Item says the letter went viral and since that happened the paper has received over 100 complaints from people all over the country.

"Everybody has the right to express their opinions, but at the same point in time, I think it was the editor's responsibility to have a little bit more judgment when printing this," Landon Garside said.

But other people disagree.

"I think it was appropriate. I don't agree with it, but I think they were in the right to do so," Bob Benyon said. "I believe they were (correct)."

The publisher for The Daily Item tells Newswatch 16 one of its editors made the call to run the letter on Memorial Day. The letter got a bigger reaction than employees anticipated, and now the Secret Service and FBI are involved.

The publisher says The Daily Item's readers wanted a response from the paper, so one was printed in Thursday's paper titled "We Bungled the Obama Attack Letter."

Part of it reads: "The Daily Item apologized for our failure to catch and remove the inappropriate paragraphs in the letter directed at President Obama. We will strive to do better in the future."

Newswatch 16 reached out to the writer of that letter W. Richard Stover. He told us over the phone he had no comment about the controversy.

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