By Friday afternoon I had received fewer than 20 calls and e-mails about the column. The editor had received a similar number. This is a not an outlandish response to a column. Calls and e-mails to me since then have about doubled. Critical responses outnumber the appreciative by approximately 8 to 1, which is also typical.
Anger is far more likely than satisfaction to provoke a phone call or an e-mail.
Not only was the apology unnecessary, but there was also a total failure of the process in the editing and publication of the column. In short, I know when I'm being hung out. And part of this is certainly to push the envelope from time to time by being bombastic, irreverent, even shocking. If that's the job, Williamson was doing it, even if she wrote something that I thought was out of bounds. Try having your boss denigrate your work in public.