(Credit: Flickr, butupa)

The Pennsylvania Daily Item, a daily newspaper in Sunbury, apologized for an inappropriate and inexcusable letter to the editor it published, the Huffington Post reported.

The letter called for a “regime change” in the United States and, without naming him, President Obama’s execution.

The letter published on Memorial Day stated, in part:

“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 letter by W. Richard Stover is still published on the Daily Item‘s website and commented in part on ISIS’s capture of Ramadi, Iraq. It called Obama “our lead-from-behind coward-in-chief” and by his first name. Another section reads:

” Hey Barack, would you care to address the nation and expound on your grandiose plans for defeating this JV team which is whipping you soundly?  The saddest part of this situation is the realization that the American blood lost in the initial capture of Ramadi was apparently lost in vain, due solely to the gross incompetence of our commander-in-chief.”

The Daily Item apologized May 28 in a lengthy editorial, “We bungled the Obama attack letter,” posted on its website, explaining that “no bells went off” when the letter was selected for publication, suggesting that “nearly a decade of provocative and divisive rhetoric may have inured us” to the comment.

“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,” the Daily Item wrote. “They should have been deleted.”

The Daily Item noted that its policy typically prevents name-calling and insults. “The procedure at The Daily Item is for the person editing letters to review the content for offensive language and ad hominem attacks. Our editorials do not engage in name-calling and we discourage that in remarks by letter writers.”

The Daily Item added: “The Daily Item apologizes 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.”

iMediaEthics has written to the Daily Item for comment.