254 More on Martha

Mark Styen writes:
"Martha may, indeed, be a bitch, though she's always been rather droll and charming to me (I once baked her a cranberry pecan pie with lattice crust). But, even if she were as mean as she's painted, even if (as the government of Nova Scotia might argue) her use of fruitcake is hurtful to the domestically feeble, I'll take her and her entrepreneurial energy over some deadbeat regulators any day. Martha, it seems, will be going to jail for telling a lie. Not in court, not under oath, not perjury, but merely when the Feds came round to see her about a possible crime. They couldn't prove she'd committed a crime, so they nailed her for lying while chit-chatting to them about the non-crime. And for that they're prepared to destroy her company.

It's true that it's an offence to lie to the Feds. But, as my New Hampshire neighbours Tom and Scott, currently in my basement stretching out a little light carpentry job to the end of the winter, are the first to point out, the Feds lied to the public about Waco and Ruby Ridge (another bloodbath) for years. If the Feds can lie to the people, why can't the people lie to the Feds? Lumping Martha Stewart in with Enron and Worldcom is the most pathetic overreaching on the part of the authorities: unlike the other "corporate scandals", Martha's business isn't a flop or a fraud; it made a hugely successful contribution to the economy until a bunch of government bureaucrats decided to target it for demolition."