Like You Really Care's "Person of the Year"

Stiggy's Moment of Zen email today said that Time's choice to name the President Person of the Year is a sign of the Apocalypse (the other sign was the line around the block at Borders to meet Clay Aiken).

First of all, I don't think Stiggy believes in God. If he doesn't believe in God, then how can he believe in a divinely planned Apocalypse? This post isn't about skewering Stig's logic, though.

Time doesn't pick Person of the Year based on merit. The choice is made based on importance in history and culture. Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Ayatullah Khomeini have all graced that pinnacle Time cover, and certainly not for being great humanitarians. Unfortunately, Time has been a little pussy about it lately. It was widely rumored that Time considered Osama bin Laden as 2001's person of the year, only to choose 2008's President-elect Rudy Guiliani.

Let's look at what Time wrote.

First, the photo caption on the web page is hysterical: "Bush, with his beloved dog Barney, enters the Oval Office the back way." (My emphasis.)

Reading the article, it's not about all of the great things Bush has done. It's about how he's done what he did: being a stubborn son of a bitch. Here's how they conclude the article:

For sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes—and ours—on his faith in the power of leadership, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year.

Does that sound like a positive assessment?

However, if that's the assessment Time based their choice on, the better choice for Person of the Year would be Karl Rove, and I'm sure there's a story about him in the magazine. Karl Rove is the reason that the debate was what is was, that reality is framed the way they want it framed. Karl Rove is the mastermind behind convincing millions of Americans that homosexuals and the threat of terrorism in large cities (that overwhelmingly voted for Kerry) is more important than their jobs being outsourced to Malaysia or having no access to healthcare or the systematic degradation of public education until there is no other choice but to privatize it and children are learning the atomic weight of bolognium. We lefties don't give Bush enough credit for being a cunning runt. (And we all know what Bush is when he's jogging.) Rove, though, is the shyster in the polyester suit that sold America a crappy car and gave us bad directions.

Therefore, Like You Really Care's Person of the Year is Karl Rove. May he enjoy his mattress of fiery brimstone.