It makes a good story, doesn’t it: America’s Domestic Diva researching ways to decorate her jail cell. Too bad its just another smokescreen, designed to take our attention from all the other – much more serious – instances of corporate corruption cropping up all over the news.

In focusing on Martha’s supposed wrongdoing in the ImClone insider trading flap, the mainstream media are pandering to their readers, obscuring the real story in the same way the tabloids do. It’s so much easier to celebritize the story than it is to provide some real information about people who need two names in order to be recognized. Sam Waksal? Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling? Dennis Kozlowski? Bernie Ebbers? Gary Winnick?

And there are plenty of questions. For instance, how did the news of the FDA’s rejection of Erbitux – ImClone’s anti-cancer drug, and the source of the bad financial news for ImClone – get out to ImClone with such certainty that the major shareholders knew they had to unload? If it wasn’t some sort of underhanded leak, then perhaps the FDA procedure for releasing information needs to be streamlined so that the public gets the information at the same time as the insiders.

What actions are the SEC, Congress, and the Courts taking against Aliza Waksal, the daughter of ousted ImClone chief Sam Waksal, and Harlan Waksal, Sam’s brother and the person who stepped into Sam’s job when Sam resigned? Harlan sold nearly US$50 million worth of ImClone stock early in December.

And what about Bristol Meyers Squibb, ImClone’s marketing partner? They owned 20% of ImClone, had access to the same early information as the Waksals. Do their shareholders have a case against them for losing a substantial amount of money for not acting on the information?

While journalists are rubbing their hands with glee over the involvement of Martha in this whole mess, they’re ignoring the gutting of the campaign finance regulations, the languishing of the accounting reform bills, and the seeming disappearance of the Bush-Cheney-Enron connection from the headlines.

We are amusing ourselves with National Enquirer junk, just the way they want us to.