On '60 Minutes:' Carl Icahn

I have a story about corporate raider Carl Icahn on “60 Minutes” this Sunday. In interviewing him, I discovered that he’s hilariously funny. Stand-up comic funny. And that he’s always — always — on the attack. In a way, the story relates to the political campaign, and could be an object lesson for all of us. One that ain’t that pretty.

Lesson: The best way to respond when your reputation has been sullied is to get real LOUD. Go on offense with a noisy, unrelenting, niggling, persistent, bellicose warrior’s attack. If you’re swinging and kicking, that’s what people will see (and the press will cover). And the besmirching of you will fade like an old scar.

It may be War College 101, but that’s how Hillary, when she was on the ropes, came back — she went Genghis Khan on Obama. And that’s what Carl Icahn has done with a withering public assault on corporate America’s CEOs, whom he says (with few exceptions) are greedy and bumbling. And now his own reputation as a dark-hat corporate raider has dissolved away.

Before I started working on “Icahn,” all I really knew was that he was one of those 1980’s “greenmailers.” But, now he’s seen as a hero to the country’s shareholders. Today when he targets a company, he makes money, but so do all the other investors. Here’s a clip from the story:


Please watch the whole story on “60 Minutes” this Sunday, along with a piece about John McCain, and another about two lawyers who have kept it secret that their client had committed a murder, while an innocent man has been in jail for the crime for 26 years.