All the charges against her were dropped except lying to investigators. Had she simply 'fessed up, she probably would have been out the door for under $100K, fines and all -chump change for her- and half of that would have been fees to her high-priced lawyers. Now she's a convicted felon, having to figure out some way of keeping her right ankle with its electronic bracelet out of view of the TV cameras, and she's going to have to pay out even more on appeals as she tries to get her conviction reversed so that she can get out from under being a felon (which will probably prevent her from being on the board of Martha Stewart, Inc., or the Zik-Zak Corporation, or whatever it's called).
As far as all the entertainment and hoopla, folks, look around....what isn't? Alistair Cooke, one of my favorite commentators on the United States, probably the greatest since Alexis de Tocqueville, who passed away this past year, was asked around 30 years ago what he liked about the U.S. (He became a citizen around the time of WWII.) He had a pretty good list, including jazz music, etc. He was then asked what he believed to be the greatest flaw of the U.S. He replied "The love of show; the growing tendency to prefer style over substance." At the time, I was still young & dumb enough not to grasp what he was saying. Now, it's so much a part of the wallpaper of our daily existence we hardly notice....