MARTHA MUSTERS OUT

Why America so loved seeing Martha Stewart hauled off to prison isn't hard
to discern given her image as the sharp-tongued perfectionist worth
millions of dollars. Five months later, as Stewart was set to walk out of
the federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va., her story was taking a distinct
turn.

Far from her corporate empire, Stewart has made the best of a bad
situation, and to America's apparent delight, she is emerging stronger.

It is a smiling Stewart seen in magazines and newspapers now that she has
served her sentence for lying about her perfectly timed sale of ImClone
stock before bad news caused it to tank. Civil charges of insider trading
remain unresolved. Still, Stewart will be able to help guide her company
and star in her own TV show while wearing an ankle bracelet that
electronically traces her movements.

That's one of the indignities she shares with the women doing time at the
remote prison camp. Stewart also has chafed at how harshly sentencing
guidelines deal with first offenders, most of them women convicted on drug
charges. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the experience has led
Stewart, admirably, to give of herself to improve their lives.

She has led yoga sessions, helped out with a prison weaving class and
lectured to groups on starting a business. There's more. She's donated
linens to a home set up for prison visitors and contributed money to drug
treatment programs run by the hometown churches of inmates.

Some of that generosity might be attributable to the storied Martha Stewart
publicity machine. But only genuine affection could explain the pot luck
dinner given by the inmates to mark Stewart's release.

"She's fit in very well here," said the event's hostess, Meg Scott Phipps,
North Carolina's former Agriculture Commissioner who is doing time at
Alderson for campaign finance violations.

Down deep, most Americans cheer a comeback like the one Stewart seems
poised to make. If she continues to advocate for the powerless women she
has known in her darkest hour, Stewart could give new meaning to the word style.