In “The Firestorn Over My Column,” Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell says she was unprepared for the thousands of “flaming” emails she got last week over her last column, emails that were “so abusive” and many “so obscene” that part of The Post’s Web site was shut down.

In that column, she praised The Post for breaking the story on lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s dealings. The column pointed out that Abramoff is a Republican and dealt mainly with Republicans. But Howell made a mistake. She wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn’t. Instead, he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.

To some of us, this is a small difference. But not to the Angry Left. She was told that she was a “right-wing whore,” that she was lying, that Democrats never got a penny of Abramoff-tainted money, and that she was trying to say it was a bipartisan scandal.

Here’s three “printable” emails that Howell received:

Yes, the WAPO needs an enema, and Howell should be the first thing that gets medicinally removed.

You Deborah Howell, stop lying about Democrats getting money from Abramoff. Democrats do not control anything in Washington, so why would he waste money bribing them. Think and do your research, and stop being an idiot.

This rag must be something that I pulled off a barscreen at a sewage treatment plant. Howell is simply a paid liar. How this creature endures itself is something I don’t understand. What a piece of flotsam.

I can only imagine what the unprintable emails must be like.

The Angry Left must have a lot of energy: at the same time that its members are lambasting Howell, they’re up in arms over Chris Matthews’ drawing attention to the similarities in Michael Moore’s and Bin Laden’s rhetoric.