Obama named TIME’s 2008 Person of the Year

[cal04]

Source: Laura T. Coffey

First black U.S. president trumps Clinton, Palin, Paulson, Phelps and others

Could TIME magazine’s 2008 Person of the Year have been anyone other than President-elect Barack Obama?

Maybe not. But what the much-anticipated announcement lacks in the surprise department is offset by Obama’s already undeniable place in history.

The decision to name the United States’ first black president Person of the Year — announced exclusively on TODAY on Wednesday — followed weeks of discussion and debate among TIME editors and staff members. In a year when the economy imploded before our eyes, could U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have made a provocative choice? How about Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, two women who captivated the nation over much of the past year and who both, in their own ways, came so close to the presidency themselves?

Those people were considered, too, as were comedian Tina Fey, Olympian Michael Phelps, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, oil executive and renewable energy proponent T. Boone Pickens, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Zhang Yimou, director of the Beijing Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28271716 /

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Person of the Year 2008: Barack Obama
For having the confidence to sketch an ambitious future in a gloomy hour, and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful he might pull it off, the President-elect is TIME's Person of the Year
http://www.time.com/time/

[No Elephants]

1. Well, duh! Everyone else pales in comparison. (NO pun intended!)

[Cha]

32. I'm surprised! Time doesn't always

do the right thing but they got it right this time.

[fjc]

47. Very clever!

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

2. And cue the Freepers with the 1938 Hitler selection comparisons in 3... 2... nt

[LynnTheDem]

35. Since Adolf "God With Us" Hitler was RIGHTWING, the comparison could only be

to themselves.

Of course, being the stupidest MFers on the planet, the rightwingnuts do like to compare leftwing liberals -one of the many groups persecuted and gassed in death camps by the Nazis- to the rightwingnut Hitler.

That's why rightwingnuts are the stupidest MFers on the planet. Pretty damn stupid to be your own worst enemy and not even know it.

[winter999]

37. Uhhhhh - NAZI party was the Worker's Party.

His base was the unemployed and blue-collar worker. Not the wealthy or business owners (one example: treatment of the Jews). The Kaiser represented the right-wing.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

38. His base was the conservative lower middle class and the criminal class

Organised labour was very much to the left but a stupid conflict between the SPD and the Communists weakened and divided the Left.

The business class got behind the Nazis as they saw them as guarantors of private property and business against a perceived rise of Bolshevism.

[alcibiades_mystery]

41. The NSDAP

was the National Socialist German Workers Party...it was a rhetorical move meant to capture the "nationalist" and the "worker," the "socialist" and the "German." In other words, it was a rhetorical trick (which you seem to have largely fallen for, even now) which sought to align the capitalist State Form with working class. It's as meaningless as the union-busters calling themselves "right-to-work" advocates, while operating against the interests of workers at every turn. Only idiots fall for that kind of shit today, so it's surprising to see somebody falling for the same ridiculous rhetorical chicanery with respect to the Nazis, about whom we have an anti-working class historical record that is quite clear and definitive. As it stands, the NSDAP largely failed to capture the working class, who remained aligned with both the SDP (German Socialist Party) and KPD (German Communist Party) until they could no longer do so. The NSDAP did not have a working class base, and that is just an outright lie, the same lie told by every right wing asshole who imagine that the Nazi's were "socialists" because of the rhetorical trick in their name. It was purely semantic, like 'right-to-work" nonsense. The key enemy of the Nazis as a political and economic force was not the Jews, but communism, and particularly Bolshevism. What the Nazis despised above all else was the basic premise of Marxist thought, that the working class is a constitutive entity that creates all social wealth.

[LynnTheDem]

52. Fascism is RIGHTwing. And that's just a FACT.

And fact is, rightwingnuts still hate gays, liberals, science...and sub Muslims for Jews and et voila.

[Jack Rabbit]

48. Except that in the gospel according to Freep, Hitler was leftwing

He was a National Socialist, after all.

I'm not making this up.

[underpants]

3. Damn! William Kristol has to wait another agonizing year

Bill was just SURE this was the year

[4_TN_TITANS]

44. Kristol.....

:rolf:

[bdamomma]

4. good news.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. Whoo hoo!

What a year this has been.

[high density]

6. Palin? Phelps??? T. Boone Pickens????????????????????

I guess they didn't have to think too much about that choice.

[GodlessBiker]

14. Yeah. Phelps? Nice guy, most likely, but give me a break.

[AllentownJake]

17. The discussion was probably

Barack is the man of the year...now we need a brainstorming session for runner ups.

[Renew Deal]

27. I thought it was Fred Phelps when I read that.

Thankfully it's not.

[road2000]

40. I had to read the article...

to find out who "Phelps" was. 'Course I remember the Olympics, but a last name alone meant nothing.

Glad it's our guy!

[Dead Elephant]

7. The cover is awesome

Shepard Fairey who was already an incredibly established artist is going to be bigger then ever.
Of course I prefer my own Obama drawings.

http://www.RobertIsrael.etsy.com

[LynneSin]

8. And they promised it was going to be me this year

[dipsydoodle]

9. Wouldn't worry

I think the year that Bosh expected to get it Alfred E. Neuman got it instead.

[No Elephants]

22. Did anyone

notice any difference?

[dipsydoodle]

28. Indeed.

despite the fact its an affront to good old Alfred - a star since the 50's.

[northofdenali]

11. Lynne, darlin', I PROMISE next year, 'K?

I love you, and all your posts. When you comin' up?

[Dogmudgeon]

18. You'll always be MY Person Of The Year

--p!
Tina will just have to understand.

[northofdenali]

30. Hah! You'll have to fight me

and a mad moose to get to Lynne! Mine, mine mine!!

[Harry Monroe]

24. We've already had our 15 minutes of fame

Remember when the picked "Us" (all of us) 2 years ago?? And that horrible cover with a computer monitor with a foil surface so we could ooh and aah when we saw ourselves in it when looking at the cover. What a horrible choice. We were chosen because we "changed" media and the Internets. Yeah, wasting time on YouTube looking at waterskiing squirrles really changed the world for better or worse that year!! I'm so glad Time finally got back to a bit of journalistic integrity with their choice this year. Our 15 minutes of fame is up. Too bad I didn't take advantage of it.

[northofdenali]

10. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

I will never forget that the only reason I'm standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky. Stood up when it was hard. Stood up when it wasn't popular. And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.

BARACK OBAMA, Jan. 8, 2008

[Cha]

34. What a tribute to those before

him..thanks, northofdenali

[Autonomy]

12. If Obama were not picked for POTY

Time and the whole POTY thing would lose credibility. Obama was a must-win. No close second.

[Wetzelbill]

20. Yeah it was a pretty obvious choice

I think maybe Michael Phelps was a distant second. Waaaaay distant.

[RebelOne]

13. Great news!! Best-ever choice.

[Mad_Dem_X]

15. Were they honestly considering PALIN???

You gotta be kidding me.

[northofdenali]

45. Nope, she came in #2, along with French President

Sarkozy and a couple of others.

I'm laughing my ass off, because a couple of publications I post on have called Time a "left wing liberal magazine"..................

[jwlashta]

16. An easy choice

and the right choice, not to mention uncontroversial. It seems like over the past few years, Time had been missing the mark with their person of the year. This year, they got it right. Let's face it, Obama overcame Clinton, McCain, and accomplished the unthinkable all the while remaining in the media spotlight for the better part of a year.

[joshcryer]

23. Yeah, as I said when people were insinuating Palin would be picked, it'd be shocking...

...if Obama was *not* picked. Utterly insane.

[Wetzelbill]

19. He just edged out me and Kurovski.

I think they are prejudiced against my bad grammar.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. Arrgh! What a list!

Like a prison line up!

Phelps is okay.

Sarkozy is better than I thought he'd be.

John McCain at least deserves a booby prize for putting up with Caribou Barbie (although he did bring it on himself).

Tina Fay comes close.

Hillary -- a good contender. Joe Biden also deserves a nod. All of the audition line-up, in fact.

But let's face it -- aside from the election, it's been a dog-bite of a year.

--p!

[me b zola]

25. There is also a poll at the time link

Is Barack Obama the right choice for Person of the Year 2008?

http://www.time.com/time /

[gblady]

42. interesting...

roll over map with state's results

[awoke_in_2003]

43. I was surprised with Texas...

(and the rest of the south). 88% yes in Texas.

[slutticus]

46. LOL, what's up with Maryland? 92% NO?

[CC]

51. My guess on Maryland would

be that many think Phelps should of gotten it. He is from Baltimore. Me I thought the only choice was Obama.

[slutticus]

53. Ohhhhhhh.....that makes sense I guess. I was like "WTF?!?!?" :D

[onehandle]

26. Palin is a close runner up. Oh, yeah. She's AWESOME!

Ugh. I'll pass on being impressed with their choice of Obama.

[Dukkha]

29. Palin was hardly worthy

The person of the year has to be influential and newsworthy. She did everything in her power to avoid being interviewed in the news so as not to expose the fact she was a clueless moron, no more worthy of the attention she got than a game show contestant. The mere mention of her name is a great insult to all the other women who truly mattered and earned the right to be there.

[northofdenali]

31. You've been K&R'd all the way from the Palin Base of Alaska.

But we haven't seen her in a while. Thank Jeebus.

SO, so glad to see this. Just makes '08 a little more special!

[lenegal]

33. Truly the best Time Magazine Person of the Year

nt

[SharonRB]

36. Duh!

There was no doubt in my mind they'd pick him.

[Taverner]

39. But...but...he appoints people who DISAGREE WITH HIM!!!

He's as bad as HITLER!!!!

[calico1]

49. Damn!....

Joe The Plumber was robbed!

[Jack Rabbit]

50. Remember, this isn't necessarily an honor

See post 35. Stalin was also a past winner.

Traditionally, although Time lamentably and even ridiculously parted from this for the last several years, the "Man (later Person) of the Year" went to the individual of group that most influenced events, for good or ill, over the last year. On that basis, Time was right to name Hitler the Man of the Year for 1938.

Even if I had voted against Mr. Obama, I would have to agree with this award. He ran what may be the best presidential campaign ever and actually got the American people excited in an election year, something that hasn't happened in a long time. He proved that Americans would vote for an Afro-American as president.