Dear A.I.G., I Quit!  —  The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group's financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.  —  DEAR Mr. Liddy,  —  It is with deep regret that I submit …

Transcript: President Obama's Press Conference  —  [*] OBAMA: Hello, everybody.  Please have a seat.  —  Good evening.  Now, before I take questions from the correspondents, I want to give everyone who's watching tonight an update on the steps we're taking to move this economy from recession to recovery …

Little-Known GOP Challenger Tops Specter In Primary, Quinnipiac University Pennsylvania Poll Finds; Support For Obama Plan Helps Among Democrats  —  Apparently paying a political price for his support of President Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan, longtime Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter …

GOP faithful still loves Jindal  —  While President Barack Obama commanded a national prime time TV audience, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal played to the GOP faithful Tuesday night, warning a Republican fund raising dinner that Obama was undertaking “the greatest expansion of government in our lifetimes.”

What Obama said and what he meant  —  Hold a Washington news conference and you'll be sure to hear a lot about Washington obsessions.  —  Two big ones dominated President Barack Obama's prime-time encounter with the White House press corps: budget deficits, and growing criticism in the Congress …

‘Global War On Terror’ Is Given New Name  —  The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase “global war on terror,” a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.  —  In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that …

Obama testing pundits' patience  —  Barack Obama's second televised presidential news conference saw him in combative mood, pundits and bloggers judged after his prime-time White House performance.  —  Online reaction was dominated by the president's minor spat with a TV reporter …

Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures  —  President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term.  But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package …

Barack Obama's delivery of no news is quite smooth  —  Tuesday morning The Ticket examined the White House's current political strategy and asked the question of who would show up at Barack Obama's second nationally televised news conference that evening: the president or the senator?

Top Hedge Fund Managers Do Well in a Down Year  —  The financial crisis may have turned much of Wall Street's wealth into dross, but a select group of hedge fund managers has managed to maintain a golden touch that might make King Midas blush.  —  As major markets and economies careened downward last year …

Obama Flexes Political Muscle, Enters NY Congressional Race  —  For the first time since his inauguration, President Barack Obama is flexing his electoral muscle, urging supporters to organize and vote for New York Democratic congressional candidate Scott Murphy.

Geithner ‘open’ to China proposal  —  Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is “open” to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar …

POPULISM AND PARANOIA  —  Step out of the A.I.G. bonus frenzy, the bailout conundrum, and other matters of the moment to think a bit about American history.  It's all related.  —  Last year, Vintage reissued Richard Hofstadter's classic 1965 essay collection “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”

FM 3-XX: Revolutionary Operations  —  I've been looking over the Army's new manual for stability operations, which the University of Michigan just reprinted with an all-star lineup of introductions by Michele Flournoy, Shawn Brimley, and Janine Davidson.  —  I'm all for the idea.

Durable goods orders rebound in February  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New U.S. orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rose in February for the first time in seven months, according to a government report on Wednesday brought some cheer to an economy mired in recession.

An Anti-Charity Tax, at the Worst Time  —  President Obama's proposal to limit the tax deductibility of charitable contributions would effectively transfer more than $7 billion a year from the nation's charitable institutions to the federal government.  But the high-income taxpayers affected …

President Obama's News Conference  —  Following is a complete of President Obama's prime-time press conference on March 24, as transcribed by Federal News Service.  —  PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everybody.  Please have a seat.  —  Good evening.  Now, before I take questions from the correspondents …

U.K. Bond Auction Fails for First Time Since 2002  —  The U.K. failed to find enough buyers for 1.75 billion pounds ($2.55 billion) of bonds for the first time in almost seven years as debt investors repudiated Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plan to stem the worst economic crisis in three decades.

Obama's Approach to Protecting ‘State Secrets’ at Issue  —  Like Predecessor, New Justice Dept. Claiming Privilege  —  Civil liberties advocates are accusing the Obama administration of forsaking campaign rhetoric and adopting the same expansive arguments that his predecessor used to cloak …

The Geithner Paradox: Unregulated Institutions Bailing Out Regulated Ones  —  By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog  —  I haven't commented on Timothy Geithner's plan, the one promised for February 10 and delivered on March 23, to clear out the toxic waste assets from the banks …

Vandals Hit Home of Ex-Chief of Bank  —  LONDON — The house of Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of ailing Royal Bank of Scotland, was vandalized early Wednesday and windows of his car were smashed.  —  Mr. Goodwin attracted criticism for keeping his £703,000, or $1 million …

Obama Persists on Iran  —  The most interesting moment, I thought, in President Obama's press conference was his last answer, when he spoke in praise of “persistence:” “That whole philosophy of persistence, by the way, is one that I'm going to be emphasizing again and again in the months and years to come …