US: Defying F Scott Fitzgerald's observation that "there are no second acts in American lives", Martha Stewart emerged from a federal prison in West Virginia yesterday to celebrate a remarkable personal turnaround in the history of corporate crime, writes Conor O'Clery
Disgraced for lying to prosecutors about insider share-dealing, she returns to a career enhanced by her notoriety. She will star in a new television series of The Apprentice, in which she, rather than Donald Trump, will get to dismiss publicly, for vast approving audiences, dozens of aspiring executives in her company.
The domestic trendsetter also emerged from her incarceration much more wealthy than when she went in, due to the recovery of the stock price of the company she founded, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Her personal net worth has risen to $600 million during the time she was giving prison classes on weaving and flower arrangements.
Once the subject of venomous profiles, Martha is now also getting sympathy for doing her time from a kinder, gentler media. They include a lengthy account in the Wall Street Journal this week of how Martha gave guidance to adoring inmates and plans to hire a woman convicted of methamphetamine possession as her gardener.
Yesterday another disgraced media person got back into the limelight and is set to enjoy a second act.
The columnist and broadcaster Armstrong Williams, one of six members of the media secretly paid by the Bush administration to push the president's policies, has signed a contract to be co-host of a new daily talk show in New York.
The conservative commentator was dropped in January by his major syndicater, and by cable news shows where he made guest appearances, after it was disclosed he received $240,000 from the administration for his propaganda efforts. The station manager of New York WWRL radio station said his hiring was part of an effort to increase ratings and, that while the episode was unfortunate, "we can all move on."
There is no second act, however, for Marc La Cloche, a 39-year-old New Yorker who served 11 years for first-degree robbery. While in prison he qualified as a barber and was considered trustworthy enough to wield scissors when trimming the inmates' hair.
On release he was given a professional licence and got a job in a Manhattan barber shop. But La Cloche's licence was revoked when the New York secretary of state found out, because La Cloche's criminal history indicated a lack of "good moral character and trustworthiness".
La Cloche appealed, and a justice of the NY Supreme Court ruled that it was an unfair decision.
But, as Clyde Haberman pointed out in the New York Times yesterday, the authorities refused to change their mind, and the fully qualified barber, who has like Martha Stewart served his time and worked hard at achieving a personal turnaround, is now living on welfare.
It's a bit late for Dan Rather to think of a second act, but who knows? The 73-year-old CBS news anchor is stepping down on Wednesday after more than 44 years with the network.
His exit is being marked by dismissive assessments of his career, a cruel full-page mug shot in the New Yorker, and an accompanying article in which his mentors and colleagues, including Walter Cronkite, say unkind things about him.
Rather planned to stay on in the $6 million a year job for another year. But he is leaving early because of a sensational pre-election story he broadcast in September accusing President Bush of failing to take a physical examination when in the National Guard and disobeying a military order.
The "scoop" was based on documents which could not be authenticated. CBS had to back down and apologise, and several CBS staffers were fired.
Texan-born Rather is an institution in American broadcasting who has been in the anchor's chair for 24 years. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is noted for his corny "Ratherisms".
He once announced that an election race was "as hot and tight as a too-small bathing suit on a too-long car ride home from the beach".
The Bush family will shed no tears at his departure. Rather was never forgiven by them for pressing vice-president George Bush snr hard on the Iran-Contra scandal.
He was first and foremost a newsman who yearned for acclaim as a reporter. He had many exclusives in an environment where news is getting ever softer.
It was Rather who got the last interview with Saddam Hussein and who first broke the Abu Ghraib scandal on air.
Conservatives have long accused CBS and Rather of liberal bias.
At least now, echoing what Nixon once said about himself after losing an election that seemed to end his prospects of a second act in American politics, they won't have Dan Rather to kick around any more.
Dan Rather is the second of the big three network anchors to step down since the start of the year.
Tom Brokaw departed from NBC in January and was replaced by Brian Williams.
The audience for network news is declining in the US - the average viewer today is aged 60 and the commercial breaks regularly feature ads for Viagra - but 30 million people still tune in, and the anchors work hard to scoop each other.
Williams began a newscast this week with an "exclusive" story that Raid Juhi, the chief judge hearing the case against Saddam Hussein, had been assassinated.
For the first time they showed the judge's face on screen, which the networks had always blurred for security reasons.
NBC later had to apologise. It was a different judge who was assassinated.