Attitude Is Everything

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Some days are stone ...



I'm no lawyer, and maybe life is more complicated than I give it credit for being, but when people who know better break the law, rich and famous or not, I have a problem with them playing the martyr. Bunnie Diehl at Worldmagblog had what I thought was an interesting piece of rhetoric over the Martha Stewart case:

I am truly in shock over the verdict against Martha Stewart. It seems insane to me that she was ever indicted to begin with.

1) I don't believe it should be considered illegal or immoral to get rid of stocks based on the fact that someone who runs the company is dumping their stocks. In fact, this is the beautiful market in action and helps other investors avoid taking a bath (if they watch other investors' moves).
2) She was convicted of covering up a crime that the government was unable to prove she committed. THAT'S RIDICULOUS.
3) She is the victim of an over-zealous, politically-motivated prosecutor (Eliot Spitzer) who is on a witch hunt against mutual funds.
4) She is the victim of a populace that routinely breaks God's commandments against coveting. People are envious of her and jealous of her wealth, fame and power. Nothing would make them happier than to see her go to prison.
5) People are completely hypocritical. They praise this obstruction of justice conviction while decrying a similar indictment (though no conviction) against Bill Clinton for obstruction of justice. And at least in his case he was being sued by a separate woman for sexual harrassment of an employee.

I don't wish to indulge in schadenfreude, and I don't wish to turn this whole thing into a grand morality play. I think what has happened to Martha Stewart is tragic, but I also suspect, given her reputation, that it just may be of her own making. I'm only speculating here, but given everything else I've ever read about Martha, I wonder if she fell victim to DYKWIA Syndrome -- "Do you know who I am?" I have relatives in law enforcement, and I could easily imagine their response to such an attitude -- "Why, yes I do know who you are, prisoner number 26845."

I left my comments to the post above:

I don't believe it should be considered illegal or immoral to get rid of stocks based on the fact that someone who runs the company is dumping their stocks.

Your point is arguable. It's also irrelevant. Martha got her start as a stock broker, so unless one has a mindset that rules are for the little people, then she certainly knew better than to have done this.

She was convicted of covering up a crime that the government was unable to prove she committed. THAT'S RIDICULOUS.

On the contrary, she did such a good job of covering up the crime that the government could not prove it. However, she did a lousy job of covering up her cover-up, so she was convicted of that.

She is the victim of an over-zealous, politically-motivated prosecutor (Eliot Spitzer) [Ed. Someone else noted in their comments that Eliot Spitzer had nothing to do with this case.] who is on a witch hunt against mutual funds.

Eliot Spitzer or not aside, poor little billionaire, to have been caught with her hand in the cookie jar in the wrong state, if we're to accept this logic.

She is the victim of a populace that routinely breaks God's commandments against coveting ... People are completely hypocritical. They praise this obstruction of justice conviction while decrying a similar indictment (though no conviction) against Bill Clinton for obstruction of justice.

So if she had been the essence of gracious living off camera as well as on, it would have been OK to break the law? Puh-lease. And for my part I'm certainly not decrying Bill Clinton's indictment.

I think Blog9, another Worldmagblog-related blog, summed it up quite nicely:

To put it simply, we applaud the jury for ignoring celebrity and seeking the truth. This was no rabid, over-zealous prosecution. Martha had numerous opportunities to settle the case and chose not to, likely assuming her celebrity would overshadow the evidence. Having made her bed (with 200 thread count sheets) she now has to lie in it.

Posted by Mike at March 9, 2004 10:25 AM | TrackBack