insomnomaniac

"It's a good thing"

I'm shocked, truly shocked and aghast that so many people are so shocked and aghast that Martha Stewart was found guilty on all counts of conspiracy and LYING to Federal investigators.

Why are people so shocked?
Because she's rich?
Because she's famous?
Because she's popular?
Because she's female?

Give me a break! The law is the law, and it oughtn't to matter who you are--if you're guilty of breaking it, you go to jail. Period.

"So then why did the prosecution go after HER with such zeal?"

I can hear all of you supporters of hers chanting in mindless unison...

Well, call it the Everest Argument: Because she was THERE! When I say "there" I mean "OBVIOUSLY GUILTY!"

What if they hadn't gone after her, after investigating her, despite the damning evidence against her? What would people have said then?

Lemme guess: "See, figures! If you're rich, white and popular, you get to do whatever the hell you want in this country and get away with it!"

Instead, they did go after her, charges that were over-the-top were--appropriately--dropped, and a thoughtful jury found her guilty as charged. The system worked.

"But what about ENRON?! It's way worse, this is small potatoes!"

Well, let's look at that shall we? The Enron executives ARE being brought up on charges, one by one, and they WILL do much more serious jail time than Martha will, trust me, but let's not compare apples to oranges (or as Martha might, persimmons to pomagranates). Not all corporate scandals are created equal. The Enron situation involves many people, tons of cover up, reems of documents, whistle-blowers, years of convoluted deal-making, and not one of the people who are currently whining about how "unfair" the whole thing is with Martha understands what the Enron people did wrong enough to even describe it, much less compare it to Martha's situation!

Martha's case? Simple. She made a decision to sell some stock in a company run by a close personal friend at a suspicious time, and when asked about it, she LIED and she and her broker took active steps to cover up the fact that she'd lied. Had you or I done this, we would have been brought up on charges too, so why shouldn't she be? Becaue it was only $40,000? Because she's MAAAAAARTHA? Because there are other worse crimes out there to prosecute?

Won't there always be worse crimes out there? What kind of illogic is this? What next? Let's not arrest the rich popular guy who drives drunk one time because there's some drunken loser we don't know out there who does it every weekend? Is that what we've come to as a society? Do we really want to give our celebrities free passes to behave badly? Do we really want to prosecute criminals on a sliding scale? I sure hope not!

The other thing that pisses me off is the way the media and some "friends of Martha" are spinning this to be (like everything else) George Bush's fault. I can see it now:

"Never mind Osama boys, go get me that cookie-makin' bitch's head on a platter, and don't forget the garnish!"

Spare me. Why is it somehow the President's FAULT that Federal law enforcement officers are (egads) DOING THEIR JOB? Again, imagine if it weren't Martha, but rather one of the President's buddies who conveniently sold some stock on a hot tip from his broker who had inside information? Wouldn't people want to see that guy's head roll? Isn't that ultimately why people keep ranting about Enron? Because there's this perception that Bush was tight with the leadership there? Again, spare me. Take a peek at how many times the top brass of that company visited with the former occupant of the White House before you go throwing stones at this President on that score. He's no more responsible for what those assholes did at Enron than Bill Cosby is responsible for what Martha did!

Botton line? The only person to blame for what's happening to Martha is MARTHA, and before you lose too much sleep worrying about this woman you think you know, but don't, remind yourself that if the shoe were on the other foot, she'd be much more interested in telling you how it doesn't go with your outfit than in rushing defend your honor.

Posted by insomnomaniac at March 7, 2004 11:34 PM | TrackBack