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It does seem odd that the government did not have enough evidence to make the charges of insider trading stick, but they were able to convict her of lying about insider trading. The do-gooders have made too many 1984ish laws where everyone is guilty of something. We don't want a system where people can set up phony companies and then cash out at the right moment, but we have gone to the other extreme with arbitrary and unrealistic ideas about "fairness."

So she lied to the government -- the government lies to us all the time. I remember the wasted years the Feds went after Microsoft while Bin Ladin's terrorists plotted freely in this country. The government -- especially those politicians who scream about "fairness" all the time -- have lost credibility in my eyes.

Maybe Martha Stewart isn't a "nice" person. She isn't likeable like O.J. Simpson, so hordes of angry citizens did not march from the welfare offices and bars to the streets to riot on her behalf. Instead, she is a "ruthless" business woman -- something the left loves in theory but hates in practice. The last time I looked, the world is a ruthless place.

It does seem odd that the government did not have enough evidence to make the charges of insider trading stick ...

Yes, that notion does seem odd. I thought so myself. I did some research. Turns out she at least was (and as far as I know, still is) a defendant in a civil case brought by the SEC. The gravamen of the civil case? Illegal insider trading.

It does seem odd that the government did not have enough evidence to make the charges of insider trading stick, but they were able to convict her of lying about insider trading.

Unfortunately it is not odd at all. Under today's nonsense laws you can be convicted of conspiracy to do something that you did not do. It was the founder's expectation that the jurors would laugh such stuff out of court, but our public school educated jurors go along with the insanity.

It does seem odd that the government did not have enough evidence to make the charges of insider trading stick, but they were able to convict her of lying about insider trading.

So if the Enron/WorldCom people could only be convicted of shredding papers, eliminating evidence, burning journals and deleting emails, you would just let them go?