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03/26/2004 Archived Entry: "Martha STewart"

The March 22 New Yorker's top billed article Enabling Martha reveals the Stewart's slip from genius CEO to bungling felon is just as ugly as imagined. To get an idea of just how pathetic her case became, consider that part of her attorney's closing argument was that surely Stewart wasn't trying to hide evidence from the goverment because she wouldn't have been so stupid to do such a bad job of it. Surely someone with such domestic refinement would have the skills to really clean up her business faux-pas, no? Of course the response from the prosecution was that white collar crimes are often the result of bright folks acting stupid. If this "too smart to be so stupid" defense had worked, I would be tempted to start lying to the goverment while making sure I do a really lousy job covering my tracks -- so lousy, I would look innocent!

Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker article argues that the nature of her relationship with her staff caused her downfall. A stockbrocker breaks the law to win her favor. Her attorney dreads the thought of asking his client to take the Fifth. In fact she was surrounded by talented people interested in helping her, but it was to little avail. They failed her because they were too frightened of getting on her bad side to give her good advice.

Celebrity news is often information more useless than a pet cat, comforting, amusing, a good conversation topic, but little more. Ms. Stewart's difficulties are actually very relevant. It's about how easy it is to lie and pretend to know what you're doing, instead of just shutting up and letting your staff guide you.

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