Every so often we have a story that triggers so much shared rage from our readers they unleash a torrent of comments, turning our website into a giant megaphone at a country-wide protest rally.

This week, it happened when late-late-late-night Fox News host Greg Gutfeld mocked Canada's military operations in Afghanistan. He expressed wonderment that we were even in the country, and mused whether it wasn't "the perfect time to invade" Canada because we "have no army."

Gutfeld's attempt at humour showed an alarming ignorance about a war that has cost the lives of 116 military personnel. His timing was also bad. As his show "Red Eye" aired, Canadians were mourning four soldiers killed by a roadside bomb.

"It's truly sad that Fox would air and allow such ignorance, especially with the four soldiers coming home today. I wonder if Greg Gutfeld has ever served in the military? To me he is nothing more than a pathetic coward who should never be allowed to be on TV again!!" wrote "Jody." And that's just one of the comments we could safely publish.

The ensuing anger seemed to feed off itself, as comments piled on top of comments and quickly escalated into the hundreds. The sheer amount of public outrage became a story of its own.

Gutfeld offered a qualified apology; one of the panelists on the show, comedian Doug Benson, offered a sincere apology.

Was the rage justifiable? Even if Gutfeld's remarks can be dismissed as jokes, Canadians have a low tolerance for bad humour. Ask any comic trying to cut his or her teeth on our country's brutal stand-up circuit.

As some of our readers commented, the best satire works from a high ground of truth, like Rick Mercer or, in Gutfeld's own country, Jon Stewart. "Jason from Montreal" wrote: "Jon Stewart uses facts and pokes fun at political figures or decisions made by the government or other officials. This show and its guests were completely ignorant of the situation in Afghanistan and Canada's role there."

In the end, our comments may have only added to the problem, by bringing attention to a show that airs at 3 a.m. ET on a station few Canadians bother watching.

As "Parker" wrote: "Even if Mr. Benson or any of the other panelists are sorry or not, one thing remains certain. There is no such thing as bad publicity. I bet the Red Eye show has increased its viewership manyfold through this."

Last week's column

I want to thank our readers for their feedback on last week's column, when I asked what you thought about our monitoring system for comments.

"average joe" was the first to suggest some sort of rating system to distinguish the cream of the crop, and a few others, like "Michael (Ottawa)" were quick to agree, saying it would encourage more articulate responses.

We've thought about doing this, and our developer and wizard behind the curtain, Rizwan Awadia, is looking into the idea of adding such a function to the website's comments system.

"Prof. Pye Chartt," suggested being more selective on which stories readers can leave comments. He wrote that "stories concerning death/tragedy, where no debate, controversy, or material facts are (yet) in evidence (ie. Natasha Richardson story, Mexican bus crash story, Atlantic helicopter story, all of this past week) only lead to a relatively short string of condolences from strangers. What are readers really supposed to say?!"

That's a good point. Articles on plane crashes can be tricky because readers are asked to comment on a situation where few details are known, and we can't publish misinformation. The same goes for the Natasha Richardson story, where details were slow to emerge on the accident and the actor's condition. But in stories that involve tragedy, such as when a Canadian soldier dies, we have found that readers want to express their grief or sympathy, and comments are an easy way to do that.

"Jaye" said poor spelling in comments is a nagging problem, writing: "I try to keep an open mind when reading the posts of others, but I can't help thinking sometimes that some of them are so full of mistakes that what the author is saying cannot be taken seriously because he/she is illiterate."

"Jaye" is not the first to notice this, and won't be the last. It already takes a substantial amount of time to go through all the comments we receive each day and make sure they're safe to post. We correct some common errors when we have time; other times we just delete comments that are riddled with errors. Fully editing them would require far more time. But I hope those hoping to persuade others with their comments, especially on political stories, take notice of "Jaye"'s complaint.