"larry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:Well she lied, cheated, stole and got caught.. so I guess
she deserves to go to JAIL. I think they should fine the
#%&$ out of her and put her back to work to pay some big
taxes. But on the other hand those with plenty of money
are not very afraid of paying a fine.. big deal.. but some
time in stripes scares nearly everybody.
Laurence
From today's Washington Times
Saving the streets from Martha Stewart
By Wesley Pruden
We'll all sleep better now, feeling safe and secure in our
beds (with or without flowered sheets). The feds are finally
getting Martha Stewart off the streets. Her expensively
coiffed scalp will look nice on the wall behind the desk of
the U.S. district attorney who led the prosecution. Martha,
who insists on things being done right, will help him choose
the appropriate presentation for her scalp. A mahogany frame
against a deep red matte ought to set off Martha's blonde
locks in an elegant and fetching way. Some of the reporters
and pundits who are offended most by Martha's advocacy of
grown-up clothes and neat hair, orderly digs, and flowers
and dishes arranged for a king's most demanding subjects
haven't had so much fun since the feds hounded Jim and Tammy
Faye Bakker into prison and oblivion for overbooking their
hotel. The first juror who spoke up after the verdict called
throwing Miss Stewart into the slammer a victory for "the
average guy." You could hear in his voice the triumphant
note of revenge done well. "Maybe it's a victory for the
little guy who loses money in the markets because of these
types of transactions, the people who lose money in 401(k)
plans," said Chappell Hartridge, 47, a computer programmer
who talks too much. "Maybe it might give the average guy a
little more confident feeling that can invest in the market
and everything will be on the up and up." Well, maybe. But
making Martha Stewart an example for a seminar on prudent
investing is a bizarre use of a federal criminal trial,
particularly since the feds' bill of particulars was thin
soup to begin with and made more so when the judge threw out
the charge of insider trading, the only blob of genuine bone
and fat in the pot. Juror Hartridge and his prejudices, it
now seems clear, was exactly what the feds were counting on
to save them from the humiliation of a collapsing railroad
job. Miss Stewart, by all accounts, is not very nice:
Arrogance, haughtiness, self-importance and a condescending
manner are no more attractive in a Connecticut maven of
gracious living than in, for example, a presidential
candidate from Massachusetts. A nice Polish girl from New
Jersey got into trouble in the first place by hanging out
with the wrong crowd, the swells and belles of the Upper
East Side who summer on Long Island Sound. She should have
listened to her mama, who knew that hanging out with the
wrong crowd is guaranteed to get a girl into trouble, and
not necessarily the kind of trouble a girl can get into
between flowered sheets. One of the cable-TV talking heads,
a woman who was once a federal prosecutor, called Miss
Stewart the prototypical "rich [censored]," showing up in court
in her furs, jewels and designer dresses. Indeed, her
expensive lawyers should have taken her back to New Jersey
to find a Wal-Mart to deck her out in a peasant frock. They
could have returned to Lower Manhattan to warn some of her
celebrity friends, such as Rosie O'Donnell and Bill Cosby,
to stay away from the courthouse if they really wanted to
help. "If anything," the voluble Juror Hartridge said of the
parade of Martha's rich and famous friends, "we may have
taken it a little as an insult. Is that supposed to sway our
opinion?" In a word, yes. That's the way lawyers play the
game. This time, the defense trick worked instead for the
prosecution. Miss Stewart may be entitled to a rebate from
her lawyers. But Martha Stewart was not indicted on the
charge of [censored], witchery or even slickery. She was
indicted on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice
and making false statements to federal agents, who are
themselves enabled by the law to lie. The government even
suggested that she was guilty of "lying" simply for saying
that she was innocent of wrongdoing. This is pretty rich
from the side that gets to mark the cards. We've always
taken a certain pride in the proposition that in America,
class doesn't count, that we look out for the poor but don't
begrudge the rich their wealth. We look to them as an
example of how to make it to a million-dollar mansion on
Coffee Pot Lane. Recent decades of class warfare, abetted by
the rich, the pampered and the celebrated who play at
populism, have changed that. Greed has replaced religion as
the national religion, and with greed comes envy. Martha
Stewart's transgressions were more sins than crimes, and
learning a little humility is never a bad thing. But when
the government commits vendetta, the sin becomes a crime.
The government ought to be ashamed of its bullying self.
Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
