When You've Got Good PR, Who Needs Shame?
We crossed one threshold of shame back when stars fighting addiction became "Entertainment Tonight" staples. Gone was AA with its anonymity. In was Betty Ford. Far from being an impediment, detox turned out to be a good career move.
Now we're crossing another threshold as Martha Stewart emerges Friday from doing time at Alderson Federal Prison Camp more marketable than when she went in. The Old Martha was on cable (except for those occasional short segments paired with a Cuisinart on the third-rated "CBS Morning News"). The New Martha, who will be under house arrest for five months at her 153-acre Bedford, N.Y., estate, has escaped the ghetto of the high-numbered channels to breathe the clear air of the networks with two new shows, one of which is the only sanctioned spinoff of Donald Trump's top 10 show, "The Apprentice." She's so hot, ankle bracelets could become stylish.
I'm all for ex-cons going on to lead fulfilling lives once they've paid their debt, but I do think they ought to start with a small show of remorse. Martha is having her comeback without even admitting what she did was wrong or apologizing to the poor schlubs who bought the stock she unloaded just before it tanked. At least drug recidivist Robert Downey Jr. pleaded for forgiveness before his comeback.
I had moments of sympathy for Martha, especially when I felt the prosecutor had gone too far. Men engage in insider trading every day at lunch. Was Martha singled out for trading while female? Then, when the prosecutor couldn't get her for the underlying crime, he sent her to jail for making false statements. Some of her sentence had to be for just being so uppity and so devoted to table settings and glue guns. So I was proud of her for taking her lumps like a man when so few men in her situation do. (Enron's Ken Lay, who plundered his company, leaving hundreds of clerks and secretaries penniless, is still hiding behind lawyers in a Houston mansion.)
But still, did she need to be so defiant about it? She went into prison early (deciding not to wait until her appeals were concluded), but only so she could be out in time for planting season. Only rappers get to be that remorseless. Snoop Dogg can be charged with murder, get cleared and then watch his next CD go platinum. But white-collar felons usually beg for forgiveness and do good works.
