A new line has emerged from the campaign trail for Republicans bashing TIME magazine’s decision to name Vladimir Putin as Person of the Year. Each candidate has criticized it, Mitt Romney’s called it “disgusting” (Governor more or less disgusting than Larry Craig, a former supporter you threw under the bus, and ran repeatedly over back and forth with said bus?). At a campaign rally for John McCain which I attended (details to be posted later) the crowd reliably booed when McCain told them of the naming of Putin. And of course, those who continue to harp on about the liberal media (yes it exists, get over it) it became another reason to call them anti-American.
All of this is very nice and well, but it ignores history by using a false sense of patriotism. And let’s be honest, after TIME named everyone as person of the year last year, the title lost a lot of it importance. I can’t see, Putin smiling and bragging “the Americans love me, see I’m on their magazine”. Ok, I can’t see Putin smiling period but the point remains. And about that disregarding on history, is it a rule that history can only be made by good honorable men? I know some men named Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hussein that might disagree. What TIME does is name the person who has the most impact on America or the world in that year. Whether or not that impact is good or bad, is obvious. It can either be an honor or an indictment of the person, and Putin falls into the latter.
TIME has been picking soft choices for years, from whistleblowers to good Samaritans to the universally hated “You” cover; it was nice to see a person of substance, evil but substance on the cover by themselves again. I fall into the category who thought Ahmadinejad should have been chosen last year. This year I actually think Anthony Kennedy would have been the best choice, followed by Nicolas Sarosky but that’s me. If anything the realization of the effect villainous leaders has on the world stage, tells us what we must do to make sure their poisonous policies (literally with Putin) never amount to enough to earn the magazine’s title again.
