Tsar of the Year
Well, so much for my prognosticating abilities: Time announced their Person of the Year today, and it wasn't David Petraeus, nor was it J.K. Rowling, nor was it Al Gore. I don't feel as bad about the person they did select, Vladimir Putin (I did say he'd be an "interesting choice"), as about the fact that Petraeus, who I had pegged as the clear favorite, was apparently only their fifth choice. Maybe the commenters to the last post who thought that Time, as a "Leftist" rag, would never pick the general had a point, although on my scale Putin sits pretty far to the right of Petraeus. But meanwhile, this gives me one more chance to remind everyone that President Putin is, like Gore and Rowling, a published author: while in office he found time to cowrite Judo: History, Theory, Practice. But he still has some catching up to do: Joseph Stalin, in addition to being named Man of the Year twice, was a poet early in his career (as described in Simon Sebag Montefiore's new Young Stalin) and authored an endless series of books, including his, um, contribution to literary criticism, Marxism and Problems of Linguistics. --Tom
FredTownWard on December 21, 2007 at 04:40 AM
The "'Leftist' rag" description of Time still fits, Tom. Modern American Leftists are "distinguished" by their anti-Americanism and especially by their anti-Bushism. If Bush is for something, they are against it and vice versa. When Bush and Putin were seeing "eye to eye" and Putin was being more cooperative (if somewhat ham handed and incompetent) in the war against Muslim extremists, Time and the rest of the Leftist media warned about him and condemned him.
Now that Putin is blocking UN sanctions against Iran and selling Iran dual-use nuclear technology, which will make it easier for them to restart and complete their nuclear weapons development (if they ever stopped), over the objections of the Bush administration, Time makes him their man of the year.
General Petraeus would have had to turn traitor to have had any sort of chance.
Steve Taylor on December 29, 2007 at 04:17 AM
Also, Benito Mussolini wrote a trashy romance when young. I know of it only because of Dorothy Parker's extremely cruel review.