Bush gets pass on Harken, while Martha takes a fall

This is an article from Joe Conason

The New York Observer
03.10.04 Printer-friendly version
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Bush had friends, but Martha had none
Stewart's improprieties pale in comparison to Bush's Harken dump


It's a good thing to be king -- as a certain disgraced diva might tell us -- but not always such a good thing to be queen.
Even Martha Stewart's advocates found her conduct difficult to defend as she faced sentencing and, perhaps, the ruin of the company she has spent her life building. Yet the government brought no charge of illicit trading against her, and the court vacated the specious securities-fraud counts, despite suspicions that inside information had spurred her unloading of ImClone shares before their value plummeted. Prosecutors ultimately accused her of nothing but attempting to conceal the facts about those trades, in part by lying to federal investigators.

Perhaps that was enough to justify her conviction, reduced as those charges were after all the hype. Besides, the taste-marketing maven appears to have believed herself exempt from the rules and laws that govern ordinary people, which is why so many of them celebrated her conviction. The government warned that should Ms. Stewart not be held accountable for her offenses, her escape from punishment would encourage lawlessness.

Ms. Stewart's partisans retort that she was a target of selective prosecution. From right-wing columnists to left-leaning law professors, the converging opinion held that she was brought to book more on account of her celebrity than her culpability. Defenders of the feminist Democrat spanned the spectrum from Rosie O'Donnell to William Safire. Not everyone in the Stewart camp feels she was chosen to make an example of a successful woman in a male corporate world, but many agree that she suffered by exclusion from an "old boys' network" that historically has protected powerful corporate crooks.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

I'm in the camp that says, if Martha has to pay a penalty, then every other white collar criminal does too. And that includes George Bush.

The irony is that her politics are private, not a part of her business.
Her magazine has a program guide which has been useless to me since moving to the DC suburbs. The station managers in DC at first had her at sporatic time slots, then they discontinued her completely. I complained to the station, but couldn't even get a human contact and never got a reply from my message.

The television show, with demonstrations of the recipes and other "good thing" demonstations was what set her magazine apart from the other "womens' magazines."

This could never happen because then she would really get her sentence extended but I would love to see a 10 second TV ad of Martha saying,

"The Bush administration -- It's a Bad Thing."

piece on harken and other entities interwoven into the story going back for some time. Rather lengthy, but worth reading for a look at the bigger picture.
I found it intriguing that George Soros owned Harken stock before shrub got involved - maybe he is aware of the dirty dealing and incompetence first hand - I wonder if thats part of the motivation to spend all that money to evict this white house resident.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0210/S00178.htm

Is there nothing worse than a "bitch" trial? Ever so gleeful. Always disproportionate. Excessive to the point of parody. Slightly deranged.

consider giving Martha a full pardon

I'm sure Martha will be able to help him
get that lingering odor out of the oval office.
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:dem: Its a good thing. :dem: