Jeffrey Toobin, Martha Stewart
May 17th, 2012




Galley Friend A.W. has a pretty rough take-down of Jeff Toobin’s latest piece on the Supreme Court in the New Yorker. Actually, “pretty rough” may not really be accurate. More kind of like this.

My one thought regarding Toobin is that whatever his sins, I’ll always love him for this amazing profile of Martha Stewart, which includes a scene that reaches Labashian heights of awesome:

In an afternoon of conversation, Stewart generally declined to fire back at her tormentors; she has no complaint with the late-night comics, who used to welcome her. “My buddies—Dave, Jay, Conan,” she said with a sigh. “I miss the fun. They have a job to do, they can comment on anybody in a playful way, and I don’t think it’s at all damaging. In other parts of the press, more damaging. In terms of photography, even more damaging.” She’s particularly bothered by the photographs that appear in the Post, which often show her looking haggard and distraught. “The ugliest pictures. And I’m a pretty photogenic person, I mean, and they manage to find the doozies,” she said. Newsweek, too: “They had a list of pictures of people, and the pluses and the minuses of the people’s lives during the year. And it said next to mine, ‘If she had been nicer to people on the way up, they’d be nicer to her on the way down.’ I’ve never not been nice to anybody.”

When we took a lunch break, it was clear that the wounds of the past year ran deep. After I admired the silver chopsticks that had been set out, Stewart said, “You know, in China they say, ‘The thinner the chopsticks, the higher the social status.’ Of course, I got the thinnest I could find.” After a pause, she added, “That’s why people hate me.”

Just dazzling.



  1. KMM May 17, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    Of course, nothing will ever be as glorious as the Nativity scene Martha Stewart made in prison. http://vlt.tc/17u

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  3. Galley Friend L.B. May 17, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    That is a thoroughly awesome evisceration of Toobin by A.W. there. It still amazes me how Toobin has parlayed his 15 minutes of O.J.-trial fame into such a lucrative career, especially when most of his legal journalism is sloppy, ideologically driven hackery (notwithstanding the Martha Stewart anecdote above) . And by most accounts he’s not exactly a mensch personally, either.

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  5. Ben May 17, 2012 at 8:37 pm

    I was going to find that nativity scene link and then I find KMM already has.

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  7. Brian Faughnan May 17, 2012 at 9:05 pm

    Wow. Marta Stewart has a nicer nativity in the hoosegow than I have in my house. Guess that’s why she’s she and I’m me.

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