Commentary: Free Martha, elect grown-ups

NEWARK, N.J., Sept. 13 (UPI) -- There is something very vicious about the attacks on Martha Stewart, and dare I say sexist. We have a couple of congressman, hoping for prime time to further their careers, attacking Martha.

Who ever heard of these guys until now? The congressional committee they serve on is a little less obscure than the "Save the Adirondack Goat Congressional Oversight Caucus."

Nevertheless, these guys see it as their big chance. If they can attack somebody like Martha Stewart, they get the limelight, for the first and, one can only hope, the last time in their careers. Being assigned to the House Energy and Commerce Committee by the leadership in Congress does not signal a good deal of confidence in their abilities to begin with.

Stewart rightly ignored their demands to appear before them to answer questions about her stock trading. Why should she? How many other shareholders dumped their shares when they saw the stock tanking?

They should call everybody in for a grilling. Including the little old ladies from the nursing homes who had shares through their 401Ks and whose fund managers sold out quick. The committee can arrange to have their beds wheeled in and rake them over the congressional coals. Of course, they may have to brush up on their CPR training a little -- just in case.

Martha didn't make any money on her trade. I mean we're talking about maybe $200,000 here. I think her shoes cost more than that.

There is no evidence to suggest that she had any advance knowledge that the ImClone stock was going down the tubes. When her friend Samuel Waksal and his relatives began to dump their shares, she was warned by her broker to sell, a sensible suggestion.

She was not warned by her good buddy, as it appears. It looks like he left her out of the loop. He was playing it tight to avoid suspicion.

Maybe their romantic involvement ended unhappily. Who knows? Anyway, he would have been smart to leave her out of it. She's a pretty well-known public figure, and nearly everything she does is observed by somebody, so it's hard for her to do something clearly suspicious, if not illegal. I think she is probably smart enough to know this.

Stewart came from nowhere and made a fortune. I don't know all that much about her, but it seems she did it the hard way. She certainly put a lot of effort into making a success of herself. For a woman to become as successful as she has it takes a lot. She had to fight very hard to make it.

On the other hand, we have these couple of wahoos elected by the good people of their districts to serve their interests in Congress. Besides being elected to Congress, they have not done much of anything.

That is one of the problems with politicians. They never seem satisfied to accept the responsibility they have been given by us. They always want a little more to feed their egos.

A congressional seat is, for most if not all of them, the stepping-stone to greater glory. They all see themselves on Air Force One. Ambition can be a very bad thing when it competes with the interests of the constituents they represent. The constituents are left in the lurch.

It is a very sad thing to witness. We all know that these congressmen have very little interest in Stewart and her business dealings. They really have their own interests at heart. Not their constituents, not the country, nothing more than their ambition.

And what they fail to realize is that nearly everybody watching their public performance is embarrassed by what they are doing. We have a lot of things to worry about now. I do not think we want to witness such naked ambition when the nation is in peril. I wish we would elect grown-ups to congress.

(Morgan Strong is a former professor of political science at SUNY Poughkeepsie.)