DENVER -- Denver Post columnist Woody Paige (pictured, left) apologized Thursday for a previous column that criticized Utah, Mormons and the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

Post editor, Glenn Guzzo, called the original column "inappropriate" and also said that it should never have been published.

His Feb. 12 column was removed from the Denver Post Web site. Links to the story now prompt a "Page Cannot Be Found" error.

In his Tuesday column, headlined "Colorado real winner of Games" Paige was blunt in his criticism of the Utah Olympic venue proclaiming, "Salt Lake City has royally screwed up the Olympics."

He called the games a "massive Mormon marketing scheme" and said that young women were thrusting "Mormon literature at passersby."

He also took exception to Utah, in general, by writing "You wouldn't visit or vacation - or pause - here unless you had to."

Reaction was swift from Mormon officials.

Among other errors, spokesman for the Mormon Church said Paige was incorrect when he said women were passing out church literature at every Olympic venue.

"To the contrary, the literature being passed out is anti-Mormon," said Mike Otterson, director of media relations for the Mormon Church.

Otterson called the column "nasty" and "offensive" and said that the "factual errors were legion."

In his Thursday column, Paige wrote, "I was wrong to write what I did. I am totally responsible and regretful for it."

He also said that his attempts at satire sometimes don't work. "Sometimes I want to be funny, and I offend people," he wrote.

Paige said he re-read his original Post column and admitted, "it went over the line of propriety."