"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

Let the circus begin! Martha's so sorry for what she's done, she's apologizing all the way to her very cushy house.

And the fans, they are a-waving and a-screaming and a-buying.. incarceration has done as much for Martha as getting caught cuddling little boys has for Michael. Seriously, this has been nothing but fabulous PR. Five months where the worst thing the little Princess has to put up with is bad clothing and high-school food -- oh, and did you hear, there are actually trains running past that prison? Wow, can you imagine the trauma of actually having to live in an area where trains run past your house?

Oh, we feel so so-rry! What pain and suffering!

Well, yes, actually, I can imagine all that. Because I have, and I can still hear train horns at 3 a.m. in my little suburban home, a den of putrid hoveldom that I think is pretty damned spiffy, but into which Ms. Stuart would be horrified to tread. Seriously, and this is the guiding death-knell for any dude who's not ready to turn in his guy card... Martha Stuart is a Northeast Snob with a personality like nails on a chalkboard. Now, say what you will about Michael Jackson -- at some level, the guy just seems likeable. Freaky? Yes. Sick and wrong? Oh yeah, buddy. Inhabited by space aliens? Absolutely. Liable to tear his own face off and proclaim his campaign to conquer Castle Greyskull and marry a girl with green eyes so he can rule the universe from beyond the grave? Indeed!
But still, even among the reddest-meat of guy-dom, nobody's out there with pick handles and shovels sayin' "Sorry Mikey boy, but you're sick, and somebody's gotta put you down." (Try to find a regular guy who isn't instantly ready to commit Murder 1 with a piece of pipe if given a chance to do down a pedophile..) Instead, we're all just looking the other way in horror, disbelief, and pity. As if the universe itself has somehow gone wrong, that a guy with a couple of good songs (and even his biggest detractor has to admit that "Billy Jean" is really well done), who should have been living the high-life and getting caught with booze, drugs, and at least ten topless floozies a week, instead hangs out with Elizabeth Taylor and has biosculpted his face so that it reflects his true alien form.

But Martha? What does Martha offer in the sympathy category? Besides enough bile to jerk raw lamb?

Martha offers the same thing that every successful scoundrel offers: a dream. She offers visions of really cute halloween cookies, served to parties of giggling children, hours before the lights go soft, and you slip into bed with your husband on nice, clean, 400-count sheets, soft as a dove and ready for love. In short, she sells middle class, and particularly middle-class married women, an odd form of snobbery and material possessiveness.

But you know what? There's another name for that, too. It's called "the good life." The "good life" is a value that only leftist freaks-of-convenience, and people who really need to go live their lives in a monastery could scorn. Who doesn't want, given a choice between disposable, crap merchandise that'll last exactly six months, and decent stuff that'll go a couple years, to have the good stuff? And if you don't want the good stuff... what kind of moron ARE you, anyway? Martha's total program is that even pathetic schlupps like YOU -- you know, the kind of pathetic working stiffs who actually shop at Kmart -- can have a piece of this good life. Because the truth is that 400-count sheets really are a lot nicer to sleep on than 200-count. And that with numerous cooks vetting her recipes... well, she's not going to be trying to sell Middle America on recipes involving exotic ingredients, but you can bet that if you want a traditional meal or a traditional dessert for the kids' party, she'll have one that will do the job, and do it well.

So why, after committing a sin that aybody who knows the slightest thing about stocks will tell you is a bozo no-no, does the public still seem to adore this woman? It's not simply because the mainstream media is pushing the affair, though that obviously is a major factor. The real reason is that the vast majority of Americans couldn't give a rat's ass about stock regulations and arcane fiscal rules, so long as nobody's obviously getting Enron-ed. What they do care about is living that American dream where any schmoe can have a piece of the good life. And if Darth Martha is a harridan-on-high in her real life when she's off the air... well, the public will forgiver her that, and love her anyway... because she does something for them that nobody else can do...

At everyday low-low prices, too!