Madoff's Manhattan melodrama
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| And yesterday, you got served again, suckas! |
Madoff's impersonation of a human didn't fool anyone: He hasn't stopped scamming people. As proof of that: his fulsome apology.
Speaking from experience as a Madoff victim and as a politician used to hearing bullshit and no doubt spreading some of his own, Burt Ross, former mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, summed up the guest of dishonor this way: "I think the only thing he's sorry for is that he got caught."
But Vanity Fair's Marie Brenner tore off the bandit's mask. Following up her brilliant January 27 tale on the scamster's victims ("Madoff in Manhattan"), Brenner nails the guy with yesterday's "In Court with Bernie Madoff."
Just skim the rest of the heavy coverage of Madoff by others, read Brenner, and then wait for the movie starring Ian McKellen (with a fake schnozzle). Her previous work has been turned into film (The Insider), and here's how she starts her treatment for this one:
"As the years went by I knew this day, and my arrest, would inevitably come." That was Bernard Madoff in court today, reading a clumsy statement of apology no doubt crafted by his lawyers. It struck me immediately as a lie — a sociopath never thinks he'll be caught. He was trying to say that he knew what he did was wrong. He said it in a flat tone, as if the absurdity of it was too much even for him to push out to a crowded courtroom of reporters, victims, and ordinary New Yorkers who had gathered to see the despised Ponzi scheme mastermind plead guilty to 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury, and theft. It was hard to know which was more egregiously fraudulent: Madoff's bilking thousands of people of their savings or his perfunctory apology to his family — perhaps his co-conspirators — and his victims.
A sincere apology would imply remorse — a conscience. But then, if Madoff had a conscience, he would have committed suicide by now.
Marie Brenner, you kill.
