Smug…having or displaying an excessive pride in oneself. Haughty and conceited, self-important and selfish, strutting like a peacock preening its feathers.
I read that Bernie Madoff, the most famous swindler on the planet, has petitioned our dear President for an early release from jail.
The 81 year-old crook of all crooks is serving a 150 year sentence in a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina on 11 counts of fraud.
In Hebrew, the word chutzpah is used to describe someone who has overstepped the boundaries of accepted behavior. In this case…
YA THINK?
The carnage in this man’s wake makes your head spin. Forget all the people who trusted him he so lavishly stole from. Add that both his sons are dead in the aftermath of their father’s blatant greed, yet Mr. Smug personified still feels he deserves a pass.
His eldest son, Mark, killed himself while his baby son slept in the next room, texting friends right before so someone would come get him.
Madoff’s other son, Andrew, had a rare cancer in remission that came back with a fury the doctor’s felt was brought on by all the stress.
Neither of them at that point had been indicted, but clearly they knew, something was rotten in midtown.
Remorse seems to have gone with the wind. Doesn’t Bernie feel bad burning all these people, losing his kids because of it?
His wife, Ruth, now known as Mrs. Pinnochio, still claims she knew zip. Oh yeah, right Ruth. Did it ever occur to you why you lived like the Jewish Marie Antionette?
Let them eat lox rather than cake, was that it?
If that’s politically incorrect, too bad.
Not everyone they ripped off recovered. Not everyone was a Spielberg who could readily reap their losses.
The late Elie Wiesel, a man I so revered, lost 15 million dollars in the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.
Madoff clearly didn’t care about his Jewish heritage either, leaving Wiesel, one of the most humble, openhearted Holocaust survivors for once, lost for words.
Madoff is smug alright. He’s also cocky, vain, boastful and brash. Arrogant, bold, patronizing and proud. To ask to go free after all he’s done, to sum it up in plain parlance…
he’s a crooked schmuck with balls that make Trump’s appear small.
Who would’ve thought? ![]()
Recommended reading.
1) Night, Elie Wiesel…1956. His experience from 1944-1945, with his father in two Nazi Concentration Camps. A 116 page homage to those who suffered is stirring, heart wrenching…an education in one of the cruelest, bewildering times in history.
2) The End of Normal, Stephanie Madoff Mack…2012. The widow of Mark Madoff tells the story of a fairy tale marriage ending with her husband hanging himself unable to deal with his father’s, and perhaps his own, unparalleled crimes.
3) Betrayal; The life and Lies of Bernie Madoff, Andrew Kirtzman…2010. No breakdown required.
SB