Arianna Huffington probably thought she’d scored quite a coup when she convinced talented but notoriously surly Chicago native John Cusack to write the inaugural post for her latest project, Huffington Post Chicago, but things went downhill fast. Cusack meant to write a brief, inoffensive paean to his home town. Instead, the 700-word post was so riddled with errors that Cusack was probably lucky to spell “Chicago” correctly. Think I’m joking? He did, after all, manage to misspell Michael Jordan’s name.

John’s bland little post became a target in both the blogosphere and the mainstream media. The errors have been fixed (and, in keeping with the Huffington Post’s free-exchange-of-ideas policy, all critical comments have been deleted), but perhaps Cusack will be a little more cautious before venturing into opinion posts. Considering some of the earlier examples of his work, that might not be a bad idea.