Why we're mad at Martha.

The Indianapolis Star ^ | June 10, 2003 | Andrea Neal

[RAT Patrol]

Martha made us feel guilty. Now it's her turn.

That's my best explanation for the venom with which politicians and prosecutors have pursued Martha Stewart and the glee with which critics have greeted her arrest.

Stewart is being burned at the stake for conduct we all know is commonplace (among men) in the corporate world.

[Lazamataz]

So what explains the hysteria surrounding Stewart? Sexism perhaps?

Yeah, and every bad thing that ever happens to a person of color is racism, too.

[teancumspirit]

No, we are ticked off because she feels she should not be subject the the same rules as we are. ( ie she is worth more to the world than average people and there for should not be held to the same standards). This is the proublem with societies upper crust, we are here to fuel their ambitions and what ever they do is okay, because normal rules do not apply to them.

[Tamar1973]

The reasons for the hostility against Martha Stewart are for the reasons stated in Ms. Neal's article.

Career women resent a woman who has made her career on housewifery (for lack of a better word). They don't want to take responsibility for their own decision to work rather than stay at home with their child(ren) and make the home a better place to live. They don't have time for cooking, cleaning, decorating, etc. and the fact that Martha is so good at those things makes their blood boil.

I understand that some women have no choice but to return to work after childbirth, but they blame Martha Stewart for being in that predicament, which is incredible. They chose to get married. They chose to have children. It's not Martha's fault that her children are grown up and she has time to do this stuff. Some women's cattiness and jealousy knows no bounds.

Where are the articles condemning Ken Lay anymore? The ENRON thing did much more damage to many more people than Martha Stewart yet the lefty media are glued to the Martha thing. She's did something daffy, not evil. Ken Lay's actions, on the otherhand, were/are just evil.

Maybe we can make something productive of all this and send letters to the SEC demanding more action on the Enron thing. If they are going to make a public example of Martha Stewart, she should have to stand in the back of the line behind Ken Lay and "global crossing" Terry McAulliffe.

[RAT Patrol]

Coming from someone other than Andrea Neal, I might take issue with that too. But don't miss this paragraph:

But sexism can't explain the powerful emotions people feel toward Martha. She has become a symbol of the conflict most women face. She reminds us daily of the choices we made -- between "doing it all," if somewhat poorly, and doing one thing well. Between rushing from work to reach the day-care center by its 6 p.m. closing or baking a pastry from scratch before the kids get home from school.

I don't think sexism was her point. I think she's just drawing attention to the guilt parents feel -- mother's in particular -- when they work so much they have little time left for the kids. It's also about human nature and guilt transferance. That's my take.

[Xenalyte]

I'm not mad at Martha.

I'm enjoying great schadenfreude.

When you think you're above all us little people, and don't have to follow the rules we have to follow, I don't mind seeing you fall.

[Salgak]

News alert: for the most part, the rules that apply to the rest of us RARELY apply to the genuinely rich (as opposed to those the Demos claim are "rich"). The fact is, enough money CAN insulate one from the trivialities of everyday law. . .

[Burkeman1]

I actually think she is getting a bad deal on this. If she were just some Jane Smoe unknown business woman these dubious and inventive charges would never have been brought against her in a million years. But since is Martha it is mugging for the camera time for ambitious prosecutors.

[RAT Patrol]

I agree with everything you said but this: "She's did something daffy, not evil."

While evil is too strong a word, daffy is too weak. She was dishonest and greedy (if the facts hold up). Should Ken Lay and the others pay too? Of course (again, if the facts hold up). But that doesn't change the fact that she's guilty (qualifier).

Still, the reasons many people feel towards her the way they feel is, as you stated so well, more complicated than that.

[Dog Gone]

Stewart is being burned at the stake for conduct we all know is commonplace (among men) in the corporate world.

It's not commonplace. It's awfully easy to determine who placed a suspicious trade just before a big news announcement that moves a stock price dramatically. Additionally, company insiders are subject to special scrutiny and regulations in that regard.

Andrea doesn't know jack.

[RAT Patrol]

You might be right; I don't know enough about it to say. But the argument that she is ripped because others have not paid is comparable to not charging anyone for conspiracy to commit murder because some vicious murderers (like O.J. -- celebrity can cut both ways in relation to the law) walk free. A crime is still a crime, and the law is still the law. The way one crime relates to another crime should be written in the legal code. But trying to judge one person's charge based on the outcome of another (as opposed to evaluating it against the law itself) makes a mockery of the law it seems to me.

If we don't like the laws we have then we should change them.

[RAT Patrol]

It's not commonplace. It's awfully easy to determine who placed a suspicious trade just before a big news announcement that moves a stock price dramatically. Additionally, company insiders are subject to special scrutiny and regulations in that regard. Andrea doesn't know jack.

You might be right about her statement there, but I think her main point (an accurate one, imo) had nothing to do with that.

[js1138]

I'm ticked off because she asked Hillary for help. Prior to the scandal I was ticked off because, gosh darn it, she's just better than me.

[KLdP]

I think Andrea Neal's article is the best synopsis of why some people feel so strongly about Martha Stewart.
I have actually heard people say they hate her and that she makes them feel guilty.
A lot of boomer men find Martha sexy also, and considering she isn't the typical pinup girl, maybe that elicits a certain knee-jerk response, as well.

[longtermmemmory]

stewart's homemaker persona is a fiction for marketing. She never was suzy homemaker. She has a team of experts who make her "look like" she knows something. From what has been on the media, she is a user who moved from financial circumstance to circumstance and pocketed the money as she left to the next business deal.

Perhaps its just a few of us, but she oozes arrogance and faux superiority. She is not just high maintenance she is toxic maintenance.

[longtermmemmory]

I have never met ANY straight male who thought martha steward was "sexy". She looks too figid.

[Range Rover]

MARTHA'S 'VICTIM' ACT

By CHRISTOPHER BYRON

June 9, 2003 -- IT is sad and even embarrassing to listen to people attack the U.S. government for somehow being out to "get" Martha Stewart over the ImClone scandal. The fact is, they are spouting bunk and ought to stop it. The nine-count criminal indictment that federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District issued last week against Stewart and her stockbroker pal, Peter Bacanovic, is ordinary, straight-ahead football.

The indictment accuses Stewart of being a criminal liar - an absolutely routine charge under federal law. And if she is foolish enough to go to trial, and is found guilty, she'll be going to prison for a very long time.

Martha Stewart is receiving no special treatment, favorable or otherwise, from prosecutors in New York or from the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington - though she plainly wants it. Nor is she being singled out for being a woman - though for the first time in her life she seems determined to play the "woman card" in hopes of escaping responsibility for her actions in a world of men.

And she is not being made a scapegoat by the Bush administration, with Republican fat-cat CEOs walking quietly into the night while Martha Stewart, a Democrat, gets flayed alive on the altar of public outrage.

As we'll see in a minute, these are nothing more than Martha Myths, promoted by Stewart's defense team and parroted by her supporters to divert the public's gaze from the one thing she cannot rebut: the damning factual case that has now been set forth against her.

Mark this: The Southern District of New York is home to the most professional crime fighters the United States has. They are engaged in a continuous struggle, every day of their lives, against every manner of criminal known to mankind - from the most evil terrorists and drug dealers to the pettiest of chiselers and liars.

In the Southern District of New York, the suspects all get treated the same: You did the crime? Then you'll do the time.

Nonetheless, three myths about the prosecution of Martha Stewart have already begun to gain currency. They are being spread by her legal defense dream team - headed by defense-bar biggie Robert Morvillo, who actually ran the Southern District's fraud and white-collar crime units back in the 1970s, and who thus plainly knows better than to spout the nonsense we are now hearing from him.

HERE, then, are the top four baloney-stuffed myths that Martha's believers are spreading - followed by the truth that is being sidestepped in each case:

1. Martha is being prosecuted because she is a woman.

This bit of trash comes straight from the lips of Stewart's lead defense attorney, Morvillo, who asked rhetorically of reporters following her indictment, "Is it because she is a woman who has successfully competed in a man's business world?"

That claim is being echoed by people like Jennifer Openshaw, founder of the Women's Financial Network, who said on a CNN interview regarding Martha's plight, "If her name were Mike Stewart, she wouldn't be getting the same kind of attention."

In reality, Stewart has been indicted because prosecutors possess what looks to be overwhelming evidence that she broke Title 18, Sec. 1505 of the United States Code, which makes it a felony crime to obstruct and impede a lawful investigation by agents of the federal government. Women are prosecuted all the time for violations under Title 18, just as men are. Yet, of them all, only Martha Stewart is claming her gender is the reason for her plight.

2. Martha is being prosecuted while the men who ran companies like Enron and WorldCom are allowed to go free.

This bogus argument has been a staple on television talk shows in the last week. A typical version of it comes by way of columnist Julianne Malveaux, who said during a TV interview, "Ken Lay [ex-head of Enron] has yet to spend five minutes in jail. [Ex-Enron CFO] Andy Fastow was another. These people can go into hiding, but Martha Stewart is all too visible."

In fact, Stewart hasn't spent five minutes in jail yet, either. More importantly, nearly every major white-collar crime case on Wall Street has already yielded criminal indictments of top officials, and more are on the way. And in nearly every case to date, the indicted officials have been males.

The former chief financial officers of WorldCom and Enron - Scott Sullivan and Fastow, respectively - are under indictment. So is nearly the entire top echelon of Adelphia Communications - and they too are all men.

Sam Waksal, the ex-head of ImClone Systems, Inc., has been indicted, convicted, and is awaiting sentencing this week - and he too is male.

So is Dennis Kozlowski, the disgraced ex-head of Tyco International, who's been indicted for tax fraud at the New York State level by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau. CS First Boston's dot-com cover-up king, Frank Quattrone, is now under criminal indictment.

Of all those indicted, only one - Lea Fastow, the wife of the Enron CFO - is a woman, and not even she is complaining about sexism in the indictment; only Stewart is doing that.

3. The feds investigated Martha's alleged insider trading for more than a year and found nothing, so they're unfairly charging her with irrelevant side issues.

This argument, spouted in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, is some of the worst trash of all. Only Stewart and her stockbroker chum Bacanovic know for sure whether or not they traded on insider information, and if they won't tell the truth, then a criminal case cannot be proved against them.

But the government has gathered what looks to be overwhelming evidence that the two people entered into a conspiracy to hide the truth by lying to investigators from Day 1 - and that is a crime all by itself, whether they are subsequently charged with insider trading or indeed anything else. Such cases are brought under Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Sec. 1001, and they are routine.

4. At most, Martha's dissembling amounted to little white lies involving improper profits of less than $50,000. The case against Martha hardly rises to the level of felony crime.

This b.s. is currently being peddled by Stewart's new p.r. flacks at Citigate Sard Verbinnen. But, in reality, Stewart and Bacanovic are accused in the indictment of bald-faced, shameless, look-you-in-the-eye lying to government investigators - repeatedly, continuously and consciously - over a period of at least three months to cover their tracks.

More than that, Stewart is charged with personally altering computer records at her company to whitewash evidence of a damning phone call from Bacanovic, while Bacanovic is accused of doctoring his own set of records at Merrill Lynch to support the bogus alibis he allegedly concocted with Stewart.

This is the sort of behavior one associates with common criminals, and that is why prosecutors are treating Stewart and Bacanovic as being just that.

IT is truly sad that the business career of one of America's greatest entrepreneurs should have reached this point. But it will surely be sadder if, at the end of it all, even the prosecution of Martha Stewart were to have served no useful purpose, becoming engulfed instead in the deafening cry of her victimization.

This case stands for one thing, and one only - and people need to remember that as the volume gets cranked up in Stewart's defense: Regardless of who you are - from a factory floor worker in a print shop to a superstar celebrity with your own TV show - you cannot lie to government officials and expect to get away with it.

* Please send e-mail to: cbyron@nypost.com

[RAT Patrol]

That makes more sense than anything I've said. Thanks for the post.

[sharktrager]

Couldn't be that some of us just can't stand the way she treated everyone, including her ex-husband, like crap.

[Range Rover]

When I read it, I thought that it made a lot of sense too. Her lawyers are playing rope-a-dope hoping that public opinion will rise up to prevent this great "Injustice". It doesn't appear that any of the pundits have read the indictment (available for anyone to read at thesmokinggun) or the wording of the statute she's being charged under.

If the evidence is reliable, Ms. Arbiter of All that is Tasteful is goin down bigtime.