After being out of comics for quite a while, a few things have dragged me back in. One of the titles I picked up was "The Outsiders" and Lex Luthor has played a big role in the first few issues.

Which begs the questions: when/how did he become President? why did he become President? (is there more to it than just "power"?) what did Superman do about it, if anything?

Any other insight would be appreciated.

OK, I don't have an answer, but I had been kicking around a similar question myself about Supergirl.

Is there a website that maybe gives a monthly rundown of what's happening in the major publications? Kinda like those soap opera digest books at the grocery store checkout?

I stopped reading before he became president, but I believe that what kicked his high-visibility campaign off was when he violated the quarrantine of No Man's Land and started to rebuild Gotham.

I'd like to know that as well. There's plenty of stuff I've been missing.

To answer your question:

During the controversial 2000 presidential election, DC decided to capitalize on it by running it's OWN election in the DCU. They've never explicitly said who was president before. So Luthor ran for prez, and being the criminal mastermind that he is, got himself elected through not-so-honest means. In case you're wondering, his criminal record was released during the Brainiac-13 update of Metropolis.

I knew we could count on you Superboy! (I always wanted to say that)

Seriously, the Lex as pres thing has worked really well for many stories in the DCU. It was the basis for the first Batman/Superman team up by way of Ed McGuiness and I would suspect the inspiration for the new Supes/Bats book.