As much of a pain in the butt it is to moderate all comments, most popular sites hit a point where they simply have to resort to such measures, lest they lose not only commenters but credibility. The truth is that your comments reflect your site. I've always advocated a firm had with comments and tried to make sure I'm attentive and sensitive to other people and how a seemingly innocuous comment may be phrased poorly. Or perhaps phrased intentionally poorly.

Thank you for doing this, Jeff.