Jack, Regarding this statement:

"I never, ever have called bloggers rioters. The "riot" to which I referred was the pack of "commenters" who descended upon the Post Web site, stirred on by various blogs, to record ugly and obscene comments. I wasn't referring to what bloggers wrote about her on their sites."

I hope I'm not far off the mark in thinking that this sort of contempt directed broadly  toward "commenters" is as offensive to liberal bloggers as the more directed insult would have been.