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THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: September 6, 2008

Syndicated columnist Charley Reese once ignited a firestorm of protest when he declared the United States has a "Jewish Problem." He was restating a theme that had become a constant in his writing since around 1990: The state of Israel and its supporters in this country hold too much sway over U.S. foreign policy. To many, the "Jewish problem" line, however, read as if it had come from the Third Reich propaganda ministry.

"Fire the ass," one of the many e-mail messages we received angrily demanded.

"We can't, the ass doesn't work for us," we jauntily replied, hoping a bit of levity might soothe this set of ruffled feathers. (It worked, to a certain extent.)

As Reese, who turns 72 in January, notes in the final column he will write for King Features Syndicate, which we published in our Sept. 6 print editions, editors have often needed a thick skin if they were going to publish his views. In addition to Israel backers, gun control advocates weren't happy with Reese. They didn't like his interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Back in the 1980s, when Reese was a strong supporter of Israel, we took grief for publishing those opinions, too.

Some people angered by Reese tried the you-print-what-he-writes-so-you-must-agree-with-him gambit. More often than not, that wasn't the case.

Still, there were many people who "never" read Reese but were outraged by something he had written. That's why we ran his column for almost 30 years.

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