HOW SHE SEES IT Shame takes back seat to good PR

By MARGARET CARLSON
LOS ANGELES TIMES
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've crossed another threshold with Martha Stewart emerging 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 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.)
Planting season
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.
After serving 22 months, for instance, Michael Milken devoted himself to his ongoing philanthropic efforts and raising money for cancer research. Wealthy real-estate developer and Sotheby Chairman A. Alfred Taubman, who was ratted out by his assistant, returned to polite society after serving nearly a year for price fixing to give away even more money than before. He's also restoring the riverfront in depressed inner-city Detroit.
Martha shares something with them: They all came out looking better physically than when they went in. Taubman was noticeably svelter after a diet absent foie gras. Martha lost weight and the helmet coif. Milken learned there was life without a toupee.
What she doesn't have in common with old-time white-collar felons is shame. And that's the reason "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" ultimately won't work for her. It's one thing if she were just returning to a show where she painted her henhouse aubergine and awoke at dawn to gather dewy grass for a spring centerpiece. It's quite another to hold herself up as the role model for budding entrepreneurs. Really, there's got to be some morality in a morality play.
X Carlson is a contributing editor of Time magazine and a panelist on CNN's "The Capital Gang."