“Apprentice” magnets play the feud
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, February 23, 2006 - Updated: 03:39 PM EST
I don’t know about you, but when I’m feuding with someone, I prefer to wage it via public letter. You know, just like Donald Trump and Martha Stewart. Because when you’ve been wronged by a “longtime friend” as Martha was, there is no more appropriate forum than a national newsweekly in which to vent your grievances. That way things don’t become needlessly blown out of proportion. It’s in the etiquette books, you can look it up.
In fact, the next time my editor, family or a friend does me wrong, they can look for my response in Time magazine. People, don’t say you weren’t warned.
But despite all this relentless sharing on both their parts - Donald spoke to Imus, for goodness sake - I fear that we, the American public, do not have the whole truth. It’s like the Dick Cheney “he ran into the birdshot with his face” incident all over again, only much, much more important, since the vice president doesn’t have his own TV show, not even on cable.
(Speaking of Cheney, I think he’s the real winner in this diversionary throwdown. How convenient. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Karl Rove’s fingerprints on one of the Donald-Martha letters.)
Meanwhile, as an “Apprentice”-watching/cupcake-frosting American, I feel I have the right to know whether or not Martha was being honest when she claimed that the plan called for her to ‘fire” Donald on the first episode of her version of “Apprentice.” Donald’s denying it, so I say we haul both of them, plus any NBC executives who might be implicated, in front of Congress or convene a grand jury, or book them on “Oprah.”
Because, as frivolous as it might seem, theirs is not a victimless feud - despite the fact that neither of them is worthy of sympathy. I worry about the message their behavior sends to the kids out there, the ones working hard and unctuously in hopes of becoming vulgarian real estate moguls or felonius domestic divas when they grow up.
If there’s one positive side to this feud - and by “feud” I mean publicity stunt - it’s that it’s made me realize how adept we’ve become at navigating celebrity mini scandals. No sooner had news of Donald’s counterpunch broken than people started flocking to Martha’s Web site looking for her statement, just as they had during her trial.
Sadly www.marthastewart.com carried no heartfelt message from Martha, but happily it did feature gorgeous pictures of snowmen cupcakes and flowers and links to recipes. I tell you, 10 minutes on the site and it was enough to give a girl that familiar feeling of domestic inadequacy, and make one subscribe to one (or more) of Martha’s publications.
Hmmmmm. I may have found the smoking glue gun.
