The meeting I had scheduled tonight with Buzz Bissinger is off. I was notified of this in a two-page  letter from an attorney named Paul Lauricella.

"Kindly note that I represent Mr. Bissinger in connection with your column of July 29, 2012. Please direct any further inquiries to my attention."

In his letter, Mr. Lauricella accuses me all manner of journalistic malfeasance and demanded a retraction of my original column claiming that it "unnecessarily subjected" Mr. Bissinger to "undeserved ridicule" and "unwarranted attacks."

And he wrote this:

"You have compounded your initial lapse in journalistic integrity by baiting Mr. Bissinger, responding to his requests to remove the column with unprofessional mockery, and by demanding that he respond to criticism that were not even justified in the first place. For that reason, Mr. Bissinger will not be attending the meeting that had been arranged for this evening, as it is clear to me that your goal is to simply self-servingly trade upon his good name and needlessly malign him. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Bissinger should not be forced to "respond" to a controversy that you have invented."

Unprofessional mockery? Has Mr. Lauricella ever listened to Mr. Bissinger's radio show?

Mr. Lauricella, of course, made no mention of the fact that it was Mr. Bissinger who failed to respond to two emails and one phone call from me asking him if he knew anything about the Ward case before the column ran. Furthermore, Mr. Lauricella ascribes to me conclusions about Bissinger's actions, I did not come to, that I did not write, and that make no logical sense.

Mr. Lauricella also made no mention of the three Sunday morning phone calls I got from Mr. Bissinger, all profanity-laced diatribes and overhead by two witnesses.

Mr. Lauricella writes that Mr. Bissinger is considering his "legal options."

Aren't we all?