ABSTRACT
First a word about my title: Martha Stewart’s conviction was recently thrown into jeopardy by the revelation that a witness for the prosecution had lied and misrepresented some facts. Regardless of the eventual outcome-or that she was accused of the kind of insider trading that is hardly a rarity on Wall Street; or that the chump money involved could not purchase a respectable home-what mattered was the object lesson. By convicting a wealthy celebrity justice may have peeked beneath her blindfold but at least she was not beholden to the rich and famous-well, at least not to the rich who happen to be engaged in selling pots and pans instead of defense contracts. Martha Stewart, the self-made Snow White and the designated sacrificial lamb was judged responsible because she had lied. As for the Seven Chumps of Abu Ghraib, the soldiers accused of injuring and degrading prisoners, even of homicidal acts, they, too, are promised a show trial, in fact a series of them where predictably the lowliest of soldiers will be sternly prosecuted for crimes that are being cast as aberrations. Meanwhile the country in which the crimes took place is being terrorized, reduced to rubble, its economy shattered, and its people demoralized. Like Martha Stewart only chumps are held responsible for their actions. In the recent, uncouth words of the vice president….
