Post pulls blog after distasteful reader comments

WASHINGTON – An experiment in open expression and free speech has proved a bit too free for the Washington Post and its Web site.

The newspaper company has temporarily shut down Post.blog – a section of Washingtonpost.com that invites reader comments – after receiving hundreds of posts, many using profane or sexist language, responding to columns by The Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell.

The deluge, which overwhelmed the Web site’s screening efforts, began after Howell wrote in a column published last Sunday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff “had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties.” That is incorrect. As Howell noted on Thursday morning in a short piece on Post.blog, Abramoff did not make direct contributions to Democrats but directed his lobbying clients to do so.

By then it was too late. Spurred in part by various liberal Web sites, readers had begun flooding Post.blog with comments, most of them criticizing Howell. Many of them used language unsuitable for a public forum. Unable to keep up with a stream of more than 1,500 postings, editors of the Web site decided to close it down until order could be restored.