Oh, sure, I like Martha as the pragmatic one, but I would like this development better if I weren't sure that she was going to be the one punished for it, in the long run. I was just speculating over at beeej's journal that Lionel's strategy here may be trying to take down Jonathan's campaign. I mean, imagine the scandal if the week before the election it comes out that Jonathan "I stand for the common man" Kent is being funded by Luthor money! Lex would win the election (and be indebted to Lionel for it), Jonathan (who Lionel has never liked) would lose, and presumably be furious at Martha.

For Lionel, this would be win-win all around, especially if he makes it look like *Lex* is the one who leaked the information about the funding. I imagine in Lionel's best case scenario, Jonathan's anger at Martha over the deception leads to divorce, and Martha turns to him for comfort, since she doesn't suspect that Lionel has engineered the whole situation.