A quick clarification: Individuals can arrange their settings on their blog posts in such a way that approval is required for all comments. The default on the site is for no approval, but some individual posters choose to exercise this option, which is cool.
In situations in which approval is required, you'll receive a special message when you submit your comment. There's no need to re-submit your comment at that time; instead just wait for the author of the post to approve your words and they'll appear on the site.
We've bumbled along quite awhile now without an official site moderation policy, but it looks like it's time.
So... based upon some of your suggestions, our existing practices, and Sophie's Jezebel fetish, I've created one and run it past the site moderators which makes it all official and stuff: