PITY BOOKED UP: Bernie and Ruth Madoff lead the family parade on to your TV. (Getty Images)
The Madoff family, the most repulsively greedy herd in recent American history, has suddenly, with the breathless cooperation of high-priced TV anchors, become the darlings of TV.
Yes, while people in this country are losing their homes, families are starving because of the name Madoff, these bloodsuckers have, in the course of two weeks, become the next Kardashians — TV whores shilling books for fun and profit on once-legitimate TV news shows.
What next? “Madoff Perfume: The smell of money”?
METS’ WIN SCORES $82M FOR MADOFF KIN
First came daughter-in-law Stephanie Madoff Mack (since when do you keep a married name as a middle name? Oh right, when you want to sell books with it), who hit the media circuit last week with her memoir. The only show she missed was “The Price is Right.”
In the memoir, she defends her husband, Mark, who committed suicide by hanging himself with the dog’s leash with their 2-year-old alone in another room of the home. What if that child had gotten up in the middle of the night and found his father dead, blue and hanging from the ceiling?
Defend? I would have killed him if he hadn’t done it himself.
This week comes the Bernie, Andrew and Ruth world tour.
On Wednesday night, “60 Minutes” ran excerpts of Morley Safer’s upcoming interview with Ruth and Andrew Madoff (who is also shilling a book — but reportedly without his byline).
In it, Ruth says she and Bernie were so distraught (after getting caught) that they tried to kill themselves. It’s the only scam Bernie failed at.
Ruth wasn’t so distraught, however, that she didn’t first think to send all the good jewelry to their sons.
Then, yesterday, Barbara Walters discussed on “Good Morning America” her exclusive, jailhouse interview with Bernie, telling us that he has a therapist in the can. Can you afford therapy in this economy?
And as for the Bernie-Ruth suicide pact? Madoff told Barbara that he’d suddenly become too scared to attempt suicide after he’d been arrested and put in jail.
Who are you going to believe — Bernie, the Hitler of Wall Street who targeted Jews at their synagogues — or his self-absorbed wife who wants people to feel sorry for her now so she can go back to her Upper East Side hairdresser again in peace?
What could possibly be next?
Does Ruth end up on “Dancing With the Stars”?