The banality of Madoff

Will I be the first to say that Bernie Madoff is a cipher, or to use the Yiddish equivalent, nebbish? Probably not. Kurt Andersen points out that the Times only mentioned Madoff 6 times before his downfall, and almost all in passing, once as a best man at a wedding. "Which tells us something about his shrewdness, I suppose — if you’re
engaged in a massive criminal enterprise, it makes sense to stay out of
the spotlight." In a piece that has become a lightning rod for emerging class resentment (she declares that she has set foot in the subway for the first time owing to her reversals), writer Alexandra Penney says that she gave all her earnings from How to Make Love to a Man to Madoff, but never laid eyes on him. And James North tells me that Madoff's psyche is that of all embezzlers: "He tells himself, I'm going to pay it all back. Just as soon as I make a big score, I'm going to pay it back."