Wikipedia suffers political edits

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Talk about spin -- The Washington Post reports some U.S. Senate staff members allegedly made politically motivated revisions to the Wikipedia.

The online encyclopedia that solicits input from the public has blocked -- at least temporarily -- some Capitol Hill addresses. Volunteer news editor Wayne Saewyc said a computer program matched up more than 65,000 possible Internet addresses to ferret out the offenders. A similar program could not be run on House staff members because those computers share addresses, the Post said.

The addresses traced back to staffers in the offices of Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Norm Coleman, R-Minn.; Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. The offenders allegedly removed accurate but unflattering information and replaced it with glorifications of the lawmakers' records and other puffery, the newspaper said.

The Post said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., did some of his own sleuthing and found someone inserted that he "likes to beat his wife and children." It traced back to an Omaha address.