The New Republic

I have a piece in our latest issue that tries to answer that question. The turning point seems to come in March/April 2005, when longtime CEO Hank Greenberg resigned amid allegations of accounting improprieties and the company lost its triple-A credit rating. From then till the end of the year, AIG Financial Products, under then-CEO Joe Cassano, binged on credit-default swaps related to subprime real estate--which, uh, didn't turn out so well. READ MORE >>

On the evening of January 22, a few hours after his administration's debut news conference, Barack Obama made a surprise visit to the cramped quarters of the White House press corps. It was meant to be a friendly event, and Obama glad-handed his way through reporters and cameramen, exchanging light banter as he went. READ MORE >>

Barack Obama has a new entry in the guilt-by-association portion of this year's campaign ad wars. His latest salvo cites the $42 million golden parachute given to McCain advisor Carly Fiorina when she was fired from her CEO job. Will it stick to the GOP nominee? READ MORE >>

David Kusnet was chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton from 1992 through 1994. He is the author of Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America's Best Workers Are Unhappier than Ever (Wiley, 2008).   READ MORE >>

Clay Risen is managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas and a contributing editor at World Trade. His first book, A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination will appear in January.  READ MORE >>

The New Yorker is hardly the optimal vehicle for reaching the conservative intelligentsia. But, last year, Barack Obama cooperated with a profile for that magazine where he seemed to be speaking directly to the right. Because he paid obeisance to the virtues of stability and continuity, his interlocutor, Larissa MacFarquhar, came away with the impression that the Illinois senator was an adherent of Edmund Burke: "In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative." READ MORE >>

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The former GE CEO and bestselling management guru Jack Welch boasted that he shut down corporate divisions that weren’t first or second in their markets. By that standard, Mitt Romney, who’s running for America’s CEO, still doesn’t have to shut his campaign down, even though he finished second in Iowa and now in New Hampshire. Romney gives every indication that he’d be the first president to give power-point presentations in his State of the Union speeches. READ MORE >>

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Huh, I wonder if any labor unions have a problem with the fact that Hillary Clinton's chief political strategist is the CEO of a firm that engages in union-busting. Here's a tidbit from Ari Berman's new Nation piece on Clinton's inner circle: READ MORE >>