President Bush - Time's 'Person of the Year'

Time Magazine named President Bush its 2004 "Person of the Year." Time cited President Bush's ability to reshape the rules of politics and secure a second term in office in the midst of what it calls an unpopular war:

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.

On ABC's "This Week," Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said the magazine had also considered Karl Rove and the idea of the President Bush and Rove sharing the title before deciding to name the president. In the magazine Kelly wrote:

The winner of the "Person of the Year" is "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse."

President Bush was named "Person of the Year" in 2000. He joins presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as a two time winner of the title. Roosevelt actually won the title three times.

Time got this one quite right. There is no one affected the news and our lives in 2004 than President Bush. Well done!

UPDATE: At Outside The Beltway, James Joyner posts that President Bush was the obvious choice.

At Yippee-Ki-Yay!, McGehee wonders who slapped an ounce of sense into Time.

At Sortapundit, Keith Taylor is in Disbelief.

At On The Third Hand, Kathy Kinsley expected Time to pick anybody else.

Comments

[Jonathan]

Bush is the best president ever to grace this country. Next presidency, everyone will see how great he was really was when the next person messes up even more with terrorism and who knows what else. Maybe even IRAN

[Michael Lundsten]

This insanity will only end when the Bush regime comes to an end.

What a joke.

Michael Lundsten
Olympia, Washington