no surprisingly, Jack Shafer is full of shit.   There was no  pack of "commenters" who descended upon the Post Web site, stirred on by various blogs, to record ugly and obscene comments.  Didn't happen.  No one, not even Michele Malkin, saw it.   (and Shafer should read this http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/27/ 22034/6577 before lying about the on-line community again.)

A "pack" of critical, well informed commenters descended on the post.blog, asking questions that the Post couldn't answer, and it was becoming a major embarrassment for the Post, so Brady erased all the comments, then claimed it was because they were "deluged" with profanity.  Unfortunately, Brady didn't anticipate that people would have actually saved the comments threads, and shown him up to be a liar.   So Brady decides to restore some of the comments, but not restore a whole bunch that made substantive points that the Post could not answer.