Aired 02/03/09 Part 1 of 2

I have been trying to book this week's guest every week since at least last September, and finally I got him. WILLIAM GREIDER has been right for so long about so many things that last fall I wanted his take on the emerging financial crisis and the prospects of Barack Obama's being elected. Once both of those things happened, I've wanted to talk with him about how we got here, what we need to do to deal with the crisis, and what a true progressive platform for turning things around would look like.

Now National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation, WILLIAM GREIDER has spent forty years examining how powerful institutions affect ordinary people. For 17 years he was the National Affairs Editor at Rolling Stone magazine, and is a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, where he worked for fifteen years as a national correspondent, editor and columnist. He is the author of national bestsellers ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE and WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE. Greider also served as a correspondent for six Frontline documentaries on PBS, including "Return to Beirut," which won an Emmy in 1985.

www.thenation.com