the big difference

[j_b]

http://www.observer.com/pages/conason.asp

 

Bush Had Friends, But Martha Had None

by Joe Conason

 

[...]For although Ms. Stewart’s conservative defenders might quibble, the selectivity of her prosecution is perfectly illustrated by the case of George W. Bush, former director of Harken Energy Corp. Back in 1991, after press exposure of his sudden, secretive sale of Harken shares, the Securities and Exchange Commission looked into whether Mr. Bush engaged in illegal insider trading. At the time, he happened to be the President’s eldest son—and whatever else might be said about the Harken matter, it is clear that those in authority scarcely strained themselves to investigate him.

 

The Bush and Stewart matters are entirely different, of course.

 

Ms. Stewart was just an ImClone stockholder, with no special responsibility to the other stockholders. Mr. Bush was not only a Harken stockholder but a member of the company’s audit committee. Ms. Stewart’s awareness of impending regulatory trouble for ImClone was secondhand, including the news that company founder Sam Waksal was selling stock. Her stockbroker told her that ImClone’s price was falling.

 

Mr. Bush was well aware of his company’s approaching financial doom. He knew that the Harken management had created a phony profit of $10 million by unloading assets, at an inflated price, to a front company owned by company insiders. That scam artificially puffed Harken’s stock by concealing huge losses.

 

Ms. Stewart sold 3,928 ImClone shares, possibly saving herself about $45,000. Mr. Bush sold 212,140 Harken shares, which grossed $848,560, saving himself well over half of that amount. Ms. Stewart had no warning that her trade might be unlawful. Mr. Bush and the other Harken directors were warned against insider trading by the firm’s lawyers just before he dumped his holdings.

 

Ms. Stewart partially erased a telephone message from her broker, allegedly for conspiratorial reasons, and then restored it. Mr. Bush failed to report his inside trades of Harken stock to the Securities and Exchange Commission, as required by law, for eight months, then blamed the delay on the S.E.C., and finally said it was the fault of Harken’s lawyers. He and his attorneys neglected to mention that memo warning him and the other directors about insider trading until after the S.E.C. closed its investigation of him.

 

As a Clinton friend who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party, Ms. Stewart has few friends in power these days. As the son of the President, Mr. Bush faced regulators who were loyal not only to his father, but to him. The agency’s general counsel at the time was James Doty, a Bush friend who had handled the sale of the Texas Rangers baseball team for George W. Bush and his partners in 1989.

 

The greatest difference between them is that Ms. Stewart, a self-made success, will spend months—if not years—in prison, losing hundreds of millions of dollars and her reputation. Mr. Bush, whose business achievements were owed largely to others, suffered not even a paltry fine.

 

Now George W. Bush is President, promising a new era of corporate responsibility symbolized by Martha Stewart’s ruin. Such is justice in the age of irony.

[Billygoat]

" all animals are created equal...it's just that some animals are more equal than others..."

 

G.O. 1930s?

[catbirdseat]

That's life on the Animal Farm.

[j_b]

"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull." G.O. 1984

[chucK]

Hey!!!

 

How come I never heard of this Bush stock swindle before? Stoopid biased media