From Caged Heat to The Apprentice

Glenn Garvin, a regular presence in Reason's pages, has a good story in the Miami Herald on the release of Martha Stewart, the Mumia Abu-Jamal of the free-market set. Our own Nick Gillespie has a cameo:

"The key was that she wasn't really guilty of anything, and everybody knew that," says Nick Gillespie, editor of the political magazine Reason, which ran a cover story titled Why Martha Stewart Should Go To Heaven, And Why the SEC Should Go To Hell. "Everybody enjoyed her hide being nailed to the wall for being the media creation of herself. But people also recognized quickly that she was innocent of any real wrongdoing."

Robert Thompson of the Center for the Study of Popular Television, whose name now comes pre-printed in reporters' rolodexes, tells Garvin that jail was just the boost that Stewart's career needed:

"Before she went to prison, I think she had just about peaked," Thompson says.

"But now that she's got the whiff of the big house on her -- the street cred of someone who's actually done time -- she's poised to become one of the great camp celebrities of all time, the ultimate celebrity in the age of irony."

Since Tim has just gone on record predicting that Bill Richardson will be the Democratic nominee in 2008, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Martha Stewart, after rejuvenating The Apprentice, will go on to reanimate the Reform Party. And win! Hey -- it's what we would've done back in the '90s, man.