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Mark Steyn's I-Was-Wrong Moment
SteynOnLine ^ | 3/5/04 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 03/05/2004 2:04:12 PM PST by WarrenC

MARK STEYN I-WAS-WRONG MOMENT

Martha Stewart has been found guilty on all four counts. And it looks like all those jokes we did about the happy homemaker in the big house - how to get the file in the cake, how to make an attractive centerpiece in the cell bucket to surprise your bull dyke when she returns from the showers, etc - are about to come true.

I wrote about Martha's troubles in this Wall Street Journal column from last June, and thought she'd come up smelling of roses:

Most analysts reckon there are two options facing Martha Inc.: The brand will sink with its creator, or it will successfully distance itself. Perhaps this makes sense to those immersed in the financial world, a culture of evasive acronymic generalities, where the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. is now HSBC and, instead of the First National Bank of Dead Horse, Nev., American banks now have names like "Key" or "Banc One." Or is it Banque One? Supposedly hard-nosed financial institutions are far more prone to chichi upscale soft-focus herbal-scented ersatz Continental designer pabulum than Martha: Andersen Consulting now goes under the name Accenture, which should be the name of Martha's paint line.

But I can't see Martha Stewart Living going down Evasion Avenue and emerging as MSL or Elegantia. Let me suggest a third option: The brand won't be able to shrug off the founder, and it will survive and eventually prosper. The prosecutors are at the very least overreaching and in some ways attempting a wholesale redefinition of the concept of "fraud." Who's to say it won't be the SEC brand that comes out of this looking like unreasonably demanding control freaks?

Martha, on the other hand, is a master of surviving setbacks. As I understand it, on Monday the feds gave up trying to cut a deal with Martha because (so I hear) she genuinely believes she's not guilty. Copping a plea is like using store-bought meringue nests or pumpkin-pie mix: it's quick and easy but you feel ashamed and everybody knows, even if they don't say anything. If Martha's going down, she's going down true to her philosophy, with a hand-stitched, beautifully detailed, exquisitely tooled case for the defense. I'm betting it'll be like the flora and fauna in her homemade Christmas decorations: Establishing gilt is harder than it looks.

That's still the way I feel. It's not entirely clear why lying about a matter on which no prosecution is brought should itself be an offense. It's certainly less material than what a certain W J Clinton did.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption
KEYWORDS: mark; marksteyn; martha; marthastewart; stewart; steyn; verdict
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Once again I agree with Mark.
1 posted on 03/05/2004 2:04:12 PM PST by WarrenC
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To: WarrenC
It's certainly less material than what a certain W J Clinton did.

Hey, OJ got away with murder. Literally.

2 posted on 03/05/2004 2:08:38 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Uday and Qusay are ead-day)
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To: WarrenC
That's still the way I feel. It's not entirely clear why lying about a matter on which no prosecution is brought should itself be an offense. It's certainly less material than what a certain W J Clinton did.

Maybe it's because stock markets must present an image of trustworthiness and toeing lines. Or there will not be investors.

3 posted on 03/05/2004 2:12:32 PM PST by In_25_words_or_less
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To: WarrenC
I am rolling on the floor laughing over this line...

how to make an attractive centerpiece in the cell bucket to surprise your bull dyke when she returns from the showers, etc - are about to come true.

4 posted on 03/05/2004 2:13:13 PM PST by Dog (Bin Laden your account to America is past due......time to pay up.)
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To: WarrenC
thanks for the post. Steyn's one of the funniest, most insightful writers out there!!
5 posted on 03/05/2004 2:13:21 PM PST by Murtyo
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To: WarrenC
I personally think she was guilty of more than lying. But I think what she did is so commonly done and so seldomly prosecuted that I wonder why she is being punished.

I am more likely to not buy her product because of her political donations than because of this conviction. She puts out some cool household goods and can probably keep designing them from her cell. Thinking of her in a cell anyway is ridiculous.

6 posted on 03/05/2004 2:14:14 PM PST by King Black Robe (With freedom of religion and speech now abridged, it is time to go after the press.)
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To: In_25_words_or_less
Thank God today's verdict has repaired the markets' reputation for trustworthiness so our economy won't collapse now. Whew! That was a close one!
7 posted on 03/05/2004 2:14:53 PM PST by WarrenC
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To: WarrenC
She'll win on appeal.

The shrieking peasants have a short attention span.

Now that they have gotten what they wanted they will forget all about her in two days.
8 posted on 03/05/2004 2:17:18 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Drug prohibition laws help fund terrorism.)
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To: WarrenC

9 posted on 03/05/2004 2:18:53 PM PST by agitator (...And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark)
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To: WarrenC
Is any writer more clear headed than Mark Steyn.

I hope he is right. The case against Martha is mostly because she is so disliked. And, she is disliked because she is successful and proud of it.

Those who covet her success want her destroyed.

When all those Martha Stewart jokes were circulating around the Internet the handwriting was on the wall. Some up and coming political prosecutor out for future political office would take advantage of the obvious dislike so many have for this woman if he had the least opening in which to do it.

I agree with Mary Steyn that Martha is a survivor. She is also a class act. Groveling doesn't suit her.

I am going to root for her to come back stronger than ever.

10 posted on 03/05/2004 2:20:14 PM PST by Naomi4
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To: Naomi4
"I am going to root for her to come back stronger than ever."

Does that mean lie and cheat more next time, or just do a better job of lying about the lying and cheating?

11 posted on 03/05/2004 2:26:49 PM PST by Wumpus Hunter (<a href="http://moveon.org" target="blank">Communist front group</a>)
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To: WarrenC
Interesting. You think there shouldn't be a hard line drawn? Maybe. But how soft a line would investors accept?
12 posted on 03/05/2004 2:26:58 PM PST by In_25_words_or_less
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To: Naomi4
"she is successful and proud of it."

Successfully ruthless?

That's what you mean, isn't it?
13 posted on 03/05/2004 2:37:11 PM PST by El Gran Salseron (It translates as the Great, Big Salsa Dancer, nothing more. :-))
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
She'll win on appeal.

Yeah, that's my view. Some Appeals judge who's a keen Demo'rat will remember all the $$ she's given his party, and will take her off the hook.

14 posted on 03/05/2004 2:37:41 PM PST by expatpat
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To: Naomi4
"The case against Martha is mostly because she is so disliked. And, she is disliked because she is successful and proud of it.

I know a couple of people who have had dealings with her. They tell me she is disliked because she is a dislikable person.

15 posted on 03/05/2004 2:44:48 PM PST by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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To: WarrenC
Well Mark,

If she'd told the truth instead of lying, she'd be convicted of insider trading, too.
16 posted on 03/05/2004 2:57:18 PM PST by Endeavor (Don't count your Hatch before it chickens)
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To: WarrenC
It's not entirely clear why lying about a matter on which no prosecution is brought should itself be an offense.

Gee Mr. Steyn, would it make you happy if the prosecutor brought up charges of insider trading, even if she is easily acquitted, because they don't have the evidence that Stewart and her cohorts prevented the prosecution from obtaining?

17 posted on 03/05/2004 3:06:17 PM PST by mcg1969
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To: Endeavor
I agree, her being a former stock broker, a director of the New York Stock Exchange, and The Chair of a publicly traded corp. Martha HAD to know ( she was briefed and she took tests) what was deemed to be material, non public information ( insider tradind rules) and I think she violated them and was lucky not to get charged for them.
18 posted on 03/05/2004 3:06:48 PM PST by bt-99
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To: mcg1969
The evidence of insider trading was identical to the evidence of lying. It's just that legally the government had no case for insider trading. The government's stock fraud charge was so bizarre that I assume if they thought they had any chance of getting an insider trading conviction they would have brought that charge also. I am in substantial agreement with Mark Steyn.
The judge in this case forbade the defense from pointing out to the jury that Martha had not been charged with insider trading, and this will undoubtedly be a subject of Martha's appeal.
19 posted on 03/05/2004 3:41:50 PM PST by doug9732
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To: WarrenC
I wonder how this would have worked out if MS had just said nothing from the get-go and let her lawyer do the talking.
20 posted on 03/05/2004 4:03:28 PM PST by Ken H
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