If the boot camp haircuts are still given to prison inmates (or do they do that anymore?), he wont look like George much longer.

I am wondering why no one has taken the obvious jab, Madoff pronounced "Made-off" as in he made-off with all our money. Not one media type has exploited this!!! I’m just sayin’

Brittany S., Beech Mountain, NC

The Madoff/Jewish discussion makes me squirm because it’s never  mentioned if a crook is a Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist….

We never heard where  Allen Stanford prayed, for instance.

I’m not Jewish but some of my family are and I agree Bella. Margo you should rethink your statement. Otherwise I agree with you totally that Madoff is despicable and I am glad I am not one of his investors. Not very likely either since members had to be honored with a personal invitation.

The comparison to Washington in looks yes, but thats stretching it. 

Oddly, it’s not his thievery that interests me the most about his character.  It’s what he did to alleged "friends," even until the last moments of exposure and arrest.  Words like "pathological," and "sociopath," come to mind, and don’t mistake those words to mean "serial killer."  It involves missing parts of character like "the ability to feel emotion," "empathy," but also to perhaps possess personality traits most of us wouldn’t want landed on our brow: being evaluated a "Narcissistic  Sadist."   Endulge me in my posting this.  I found it on Goggle by the search query: "narcissistic sadist."  It is a diagnostic evaluation.  You can get back many, many articles on this, all more or less using the exact same language, which is a diagnosis:

The narcissist simply discards people when he becomes convinced that they can no longer provide him with narcissistic needs. This is an evaluation, subjective and highly emotionally charged. It does not have to be grounded in reality. Suddenly - because of boredom, disagreement, disillusion, a fight, an act, inaction, or a mood - the narcissist wildly swings from idealization to devaluation. He then "disconnects" immediately. He needs all the energy that he can muster to obtain new Sources of Narcissistic Supply and would rather not spend these scarce and expensive resources over what he regards as human refuse, the waste left by the process of extraction of Narcissistic Supply.That the victims of his sadism are still his only or major sources of Narcissistic supply, but are perceived by him to be intentionally frustrating and withholding it. Sadistic acts are his way of punishing them for not being docile, obedient, admiring and adoring as he expects them to be in view of his uniqueness, cosmic significance and special entitlement.The narcissist is not a sadist or a paranoiac, per se. He does not enjoy the application of pain to his victims. He does not believe firmly that he is the focal point of persecution and the target of conspiracy. But he does enjoy punishing himself - it provides him with a sense of relief, exoneration and validation. In this restricted sense he is a masochist. Because of his lack of empathy and his rigid personality he often inflicts great (physical or mental) pain on meaningful others in his life - and he enjoys their writhing and suffering. In this restricted sense he is a sadist. The narcissist is an artist of pain as much as any sadist. The difference is motivation.   The narcissist tortures and abuses as a means to punish and to reassert superiority and grandiosity. The sadist does so for pure enjoyment. But both are adept at finding the chinks in people’s armors. Both are ruthless and venomous in the pursuit of their prey. Both are unable to empathize with their victims, being, self-centered, and rigid.He acts the guru to her need of guidance, the avuncular or father figure, the teacher, the only true friend, the old and the experienced. All this in order to weaken defenses and to lay siege. So subtle and poisonous is the narcissistic variant of sadism that it might well be regarded as the most dangerous of all.Luckily, the narcissist’s attention span is short and his resources and energy limited. In constant, effort consuming and attention diverting pursuit of Narcissistic Supply, the narcissist lets his victim go, usually before an irreversible damage occurs. (I would add, or get caught.)  The victim is then free to rebuild their life from ruins. The sadistic narcissist perceives himself as Godlike, ruthless and devoid of scruples, capricious and unfathomable, emotion-less and non-sexual, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-present, a plague, devastation, an inescapable verdict.  He nurtures his ill-repute, stoking it and fanning the flames of gossip. It is an enduring asset. Hate and fear are sure generators of attention. It is all about narcissistic supply, of course - the drug which narcissists consume and which consumes them in return.Deep inside, it is the horrid future and inescapable punishment that await the narcissist that are irresistibly appealing. Sadists are often also masochists. In sadistic narcissists, there is, actually, a burning desire - nay, NEED - to be punished. In the grotesque mind of the narcissist, his punishment is equally his vindication. By being permanently on trial, the narcissist claims the high moral ground and the position of the martyr: misunderstood, discriminated against, unjustly roughed, outcast due to his very towering genius or other outstanding qualities. To conform to the cultural stereotype of the "tormented artist" - the narcissist provokes his own suffering. He is thus validated. His grandiose fantasies acquire a modicum of substance. "If I were not so special - they wouldn’t have persecuted me so". The persecution of the narcissist IS his uniqueness. He must be different, for better or worse. The streak of paranoia embedded in him, makes this outcome inevitable. The Narcissist is in constant conflict with lesser beings: his spouse, his shrink, his boss, and his colleagues. Forced to stoop to their intellectual level, the narcissist feels like Gulliver: a giant strapped by Lilliputians. His life is a constant struggle against the self-contented mediocrity of his surroundings. This is his fate which he accepts, though never stoically. It is a calling, a mission and a recurrence in his stormy life.

This was quite a lot to dump out, and even then, I edited out a lot of the study. Sound like anyone you’ve ever known or heard about?  There was a good reporting about Madoff in the recent issue of Vanity Fair.  One recurring theme kept popping up.  The need of his friends to be let into the exclusive "club" of his earning genius, and since he only allowed "friends," in: also being considered a friend (and all that it encompassed.) One individual negatively affected by this man said, "He did these things to me, knowing he was about to be charged. How could he?" How, indeed.

Margo, I was stunned with your remarks about Shylock. Obviously, you are not antisemitic, but Shakespeare might have been. He never met a Jew, but used the stereotype of the "pound of flesh." When my late mother was in high school in 1925, the city of Buffalo,N.Y. chose the "Merchant of Venice" as the one required Shakespeare play. Buffalo had one of the largest Polish populations in the world. Historically, the Poles were known for blatant antisemitism. The teacher, who had to teach the play, apologized to my mother and suggested she leave early when she was teaching the play because every year the Jewish children in the class were beaten up afterwards. Jump to 1965 and I am student teaching in a white suburb of Buffalo(Kenmore, N.Y.) and told I had to teach "The Merchant of Venice." I went to the principal and said I refused; there were many other excellent Shakespearean plays to chose from. He said:"You Jews are too sensitive, teach it or I fail you." Then he made a big mistake:" He said:"And don’t use your Jewish money to get you out of this." I didn’t have any money, but I called prominent members of the Jewish community and told them my experience. After that, "Romeo and Juliet" was the play taught, and I got an A in student teaching. Shylock is still synonomous with evil money lenders.