I scoffed when Bernie Madoff,through his lawyers, asked for a twelve year sentence in his fraud case. What some people think they can get away with pales only in comparison to what some people are actually allowed to get away with — especially when the opportunity to hold them accountable and prevent further damage from being done is consistently passed up.
With a name almost Dickensian in its suitability, Madoff is symbolic of so much and so many that bear responsibility for our economic crisis. It’s easy and tempting to accept him as a substitute for the rest, not only because of his dishonesty and his willingness to lay waste s many lives for his own personal gain, because he apparently thought he could — and should — essentially get away with it. But, as with Madoff, we have an opportunity to hold the rest of them accountable, too.
