In a criminology class I took many, many years ago I learned that you cannot con an honest man. If a “mark” does not have larceny in his soul, we learned, he won’t fall for a confidence game. Ponzi illustrates the principle perfectly: people who invested with him knew they were taking advantage of a discontinuity in the international postal system. Apparently Bernard Madoff does too. The more important question might be, what does this say about elected officials like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Rod Blagojevich? Are they the confidence men or the marks? F