Stewart should be breaking rocks, not sales records
March 12th, 2005 at 6:38 pmVery few ex-cons get sentenced to house arrest in a $16 million, 153-acre estate or receive a standing ovation when they return to work. But then again, very few convicted criminals manage to convince the public that their crimes were worth applauding.
Home decorating maven Martha Stewart appears to be the exception to this rule. Despite having served a five-month prison sentence for her conviction of obstructing justice and lying to the government about an insider-trading stock scandal, the 63-year-old Stewart has reappeared on the nation’s television screens looking better than ever and poised to restart her march towards winning the hearts and emptying the pocketbooks of millions of Americans.
Which raises the question: When it comes to celebrity trials, why do we even bother? After all, whenever there’s a celebrity crime—and truth be known, there are enough of them these days—the end result invariably seems not to be punishment but simply be more wealth, adulation and fawning media coverage for the convicted celebrity than ever before. Not to mention the fattening of someone’s bottom line.
In Martha’s case, the story goes like this: In March of 2004, Stewart, one of the most successful women in American business, was convicted of lying about the insider sale of 4,000 shares of ImClone, a biotechnology company run by longtime friend that was working on a drug for cancer. After two unsuccessful attempts to secure a new trial to overturn her conviction, she took a calculated gamble that by choosing to go to prison, the damage to her name and the share price of the company she founded, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, could be minimized.
By all accounts, it was a gamble that has paid off. Looking tanned, rested and ready, Stewart emerged last week from her stay in a minimum-security prison with her time served, a company that was worth more than double its value from the day she went in and no less than two television shows and a book deal in her future. Her employees, many of whom watched their colleagues be laid off in the wake of Stewart’s conviction, applauded her happily. Luckily for her, she will also get to spend the rest of her sentence in her country estate while she goes back to work.
In fact, if you put aside the fact that she had committed a crime, you could be forgiven for thinking she had simply executed a brilliant marketing plan, replete with all of the ingredients necessary to drive consumers to action and generate iron-clad brand loyalty.
While you won’t find it the syllabus of any Advertising 101 classes in business school, the plan—go to prison, say all the right things when you get out, and then play on the sympathies of average Americans who hate to see their heroes imprisoned by government agents—is almost guaranteed to boost corporate profits while elevating the status of the celebrity to heights never before dreamed. In fact, considering that before her prison sentence many consumers were beginning to grow tired of the many products under her name and now her products are expected to see a strong increase in sales, going to prison just might be the best thing that ever happened for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s shareholders.
The problem is, beyond a simple tale of misdeeds and redemption, there’s a much darker side to Stewart’s story. After all, the crime she was convicted of—lying to the government about selling a stock that was about to tank—came about as a result of her speculating in the shares of a company working on a cancer drug, hardly a noble or generous act. Even worse, when confronted about it, she lied about it in an effort to boost the fortunes of her own company, regardless of the ethical implications.
And then there’s the way Stewart’s release from prison and subsequent profit-making points out the two-tiered class system this country has when it comes to criminal rehabilitation. While Stewart was able to secure a comfortable parole and a return to $900,000-a-year salary, most Americans convicted of a felony like she was have a hard enough time simply finding a place to live and job to pay for it. In Illinois, for example, nearly three-fifths of prison parolees are without work, while the number is higher in the predominately African-American South and West sides. Nationwide, the numbers are much the same, with as many as two-thirds of employers saying they would not consider hiring an ex-offender.
During the speech to her employees, Stewart made it a point to say that she had had the “tremendous privilege” of meeting a cross-section of people in prison and that she had “learned a great deal about our country” as a result of her incarceration. But a recent poll conducted by the Gallup Organization found that 59 percent of Americans are either “somewhat” or “very” dissatisfied with the moral and ethical climate in this country, with only 7 percent rated themselves as “very satisfied.”
Perhaps if Martha Stewart had spent more time in prison instead of being allowed to chase her company’s bottom line at the expense of everything else, those numbers might have changed a little bit for the better. And the lessons Stewart and many of her fellow Americans need to learn—about greed and lying and ethical considerations—might not have been lost in our current rush to embrace her and forgive her for crimes we say we’re not happy about.
What, then, of Kenneth Lay?
The comments of an asshole!
I can’t be the only one who believes that Martha Stewart’s situation is one of selected prosecution against someone who had the misfortune to donate to AIDS-related charities, was well-known as a friend of liberal political causes — and, probably worst of all, had Mr. and Mrs. James Brolin as houseguests.
Stewart might have lied to the government, but the fruits of her misdeeds pale in comparison to what Enron did to a vast multitude of people, many of whom are facing retirement hell.
I agree that without a doubt Stewart is playing this script to her benefit. And the decision to land her corporate jet in the wee hours against airport policy suggests that she still doesn’t consider herself to be one of the stinking normal people. But she’s a piker compared to many Wall Street types who are far more deserving of prosecutorial attention.
The larger question, however, is why our government feels obliged to selectively prosecute famous people in this manner. Rather than assuring us that even the rich and powerful are not beyond the reach of law and order, this instead sends the message that if the legs can be knocked out from under Martha Stewart, we’d darn well better know our place and keep to it.
Above all, the message of the Martha Stewart and Enron cases is that our lap-dog media are supremely manipulable and there is an inevitable point at which they decide they’ve been there, done that — and are moving on.
Except, of course, when a white blond wife is killed and her husband is on trial. Murder and mayhem that is just a hair removed from the bad “female in jeopardy” cookie-cutter made-for-TV movie of the Lifetime Network makes for excellent programming.
Other than that, thank God for Sherman Skolnick!
Oh for Christ’s sake! How about a little fucking prspective? How about Kenny boy? What about the dirty lying fuckers who took the country to war on lies, commit war crimes by virtue of policy, torture, murder, and plunder the treasury like its their own personal fucking piggy bank? Bush and his minions belong in the docket at the Hague. If there is a God, they will burn in hell for eternity. They are the most immoral, corrupt bunch of fucking thugs ever to run the country.
Martha Stewart? Go piss up a rope.
I suppose if Martha were not wealthy it would be fine for her to be out, but being rich is enough of a crime for you and your ilk. All she was convicted of was lying to a federal officer ! Is that enough to go to prison ? Not for me, but for you big government types I suppose the government agent, being an agent of the “kig” should be supreme.
I’ve always rather liked Martha and I think I like her more now. While I haven’t followed the details of her case, my take is she simply followed the advice of her broker and sold a stock which, it happened, the broker knew from his relationship with company insiders, was going down. It’s pretty clear to me that the pathological liars in the American Whitehouse, the Department of State, the Pentagon, or more accurately some subset thereof, saw an opportunity to put public attention on a very public figure so they could posture and display what they hope will be taken for moral superiority. They could also divert attention from their own crimes and their “contributors’” involving TENS AND HUNDREDS OF MILLION$S of times as much! My broker calls me all the time with advice which I often ignore, though he’s not in a position to have inside info. It is quite normal to issue a “good til cancelled” stop order when buying stocks so if the market price drops below a certain amount the broker sells the stock. What seemed to be initially at issue was whether Martha had actually issued such an order or had merely intended to and forgotten, or had said she had done so having been advised by her broker to say as much in the event that questions were asked. Had I been the judge I would have fined her $40,000.00, the amount her picadillo prevented her from losing, and a week’s worth of public service to make an example. As for the traitors in Washington who misappropriated the Pentagon to wage vanity war on a formerly friendly country – because Bush had a grudge against their popularly elected President (don’t forget even Hitler was elected) .. but don’t get me started!
As for investing in a potential cure for cancer – I challenge anyone to come up with even a minor mitigation without a great deal of investment from rather a lot of people – be the money extorted from taxpayers by the crooks in Congress or proffered by willing investors. Speculation is what one does with money one can afford to loose. Investing is what one does when one hopes to add value to the common good in exchange for a reasonable profit. Some people invest their time flipping hamburgers in exchange for cash. Sometimes it is evident to the consumer of the service just how altruistic the flipper feels about his/her investment of time. Some people have more money than time, so they use their money to find ways to make it possible for others, with more time than money, to invest what they have. Then there are those who take what they can from life giving as little as possible in return. I’m sure present company would not fall in that category!
If recollection serves, the principle of the company Martha had invested in sought to advise all his main supporters when he learned the FDA would not approve his application for whatever it was. By so doing he was short-changing his smaller investors anyone to whom the sellers of the stock would be selling.
I’m a person who doesn’t believe generally in telling untruths, but were I not very tolerant I’d be very lonely! Martha would have been way smarter to just tell the truth, “My broker called and advised me to sell, the kind of thing comissioned brokers are licensed for being competent to do, so I sold.” End of story. Being a woman, she probably couldn’t help starting in the middle of the story and volunteering irrelevant but suspicious details.
My hat is off to her for taking her punishment as well as for her years of not just making the world a better place but showing millions of others how to do so too.
Thank you Martha for your examples!
Y
Frankly, I have no patience with the “poor, poor Martha” brigade. She committed a crime, she got caught. The sentence she was given was relatively light, for which she should be grateful.
Small potatoes compared to Kenny Boy? Damn straight. So if I rob a convenience store, I should walk because someone else robbed a bank? Bull.
Saying the crooks at Enron, WorldCom, and all the rest should be behind bars is spot on. Saying because they’re not she shouldn’t have been is spot off.
Well let’s think about this Oliver North gets paid by the “Right Wing” network Fox as a political and miltary analyst, G.Gordon Liddy has a talk show, John Poindexter still holds sway and influence in the Government and they are ALL criminals yet you want to chastise Stewart for what a demanding American public seems to want which is more exposure to her. What a lame and stupid position to take. Who’s crimes are worse DOES play into this just as it does in the real world Judiciary. Ollie was a treasonous SOB who got off on a technicality and others like Mr. Poindexter actualy are rewarded for thier criminality, let’s face it there are extreme double standards at work in this Nation and until we address this as a citizenship more of the same is destined to happen.
Enough with Martha Stewart. She holds a permanent place in the Idiot Wind blowing through the Star, the Enquirer, and People Magazine. She is no longer relevant , and we can be thankful.