The Bain Game

Barack Obama's surrogates should amplify his message when they go on television. Instead, Democrats linked to private equity have undermined Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's business record

By MARK THOMPSON; Michael Scherer; Nate Rawlings; Dan Macsai Monday, June 04, 2012

    • [This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine.]

    FLYING HIGH

    $50

    Cost per second to operate Air Force One, the President's jet. That's $180,000 per hour

    TERRORISM

    The Body-Bomb Threat

    A US Airways flight from Paris to Charlotte, N.C., was diverted after a passenger handed a note to a flight attendant that said she had been surgically implanted with a device. Fighter jets escorted the May 22 flight to an airport in Bangor, Maine, where the woman was taken into custody by the FBI. Although there's no evidence her claims were true, the episode exacerbated concerns that terrorists could implant bombs in passengers to elude airport security. Republican Senator Susan Collins said the U.S. has received intelligence "identifying surgically implanted bombs as a threat to air travel."

    WORD OF THE WEEK

    Faceplant

    v. when a social-networking titan tumbles after a hyped IPO

    See: Facebook shares launching at $38 apiece, then dropping as low as $31 within days. Zynga, the social-game maker, and Renren, a Chinese social network, followed similar trajectories