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Considering that the Christmas ads started before Halloween this year, I don't think it's too early to begin speculating about who Time magazine will name to be its 2009 Person of the Year.
While such speculation may seem like a lame parlor game, in fact, who Time chooses for this honor tends to have a major impact on the world.
Well, okay, I admit it's just a lame parlor game. That said, let's get to it!
While I remain a big Obama fan for the incredibly ambitious agenda he is attempting to move forward, I seriously doubt he will be The One this year. While he is driving the agenda in many ways - he is forcing everyone to focus more on health care, climate change and his other priorities - much has seemed to spiral out of his control this year as he has been learning the job of president. I hope and pray that in 2010 he merits this honor (as well as the Nobel Peace Prize that he gained a bit prematurely).
If not him, who? Time could go for the obnoxious, shocking choice designed to generate lots of attention and coverage - say, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, Sarah Palin, the Tea Baggers, Michael Jackson. But if they want to go with a schmuck, better they choose Bernie Madoff, who at least represents the whole class of crooks who handed us our recession on a silver platter. |
| If they want an inspiring choice, they could go with the Iranian democracy protesters, or their iconic symbol, the young, martyred Neda. (The only problem with that being that, inspiring though they may be, they have so far failed to have the desired impact of bringing democracy and freedom to their country.) Or maybe Ted Kennedy. Or they could make the GOP happy by choosing Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie, representing a "new breed" of Republicans, blah, blah, blah, gag.
Of course, they could go with an inanimate object as they have in the past (the computer, the earth, etc.). There are rumors and lots of buzz on the 'Net that they're going to choose Twitter this year. Perhaps not a bad choice, as tweets have been in the news from the Iranian protests to politician slip-ups to the recent, awesome Roland Hedley series in Doonesbury. But somehow such a choice would seem pretty underwhelming. It's still not clear to me or many others if Twitter is the key to the future or just a passing fad.
If they're going to go high tech, why not choose Steve Jobs, who Fortune Magazine already - quite rightly - named Entrepreneur of the Decade? There aren't a whole lot of other people living in the world who have affected our everyday lives more profoundly than he has, from the PC to the I-Pod to the I-Phone. Admittedly, this has probably not been the year he had the most impact, though having Apple stock rise and fall based on his health is a pretty auspicious sign of his relevance.
Ultimately, my best guess is that Time will choose some combination of Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner. Time could spin them as heroes for (apparently) saving us from the next Great Depression or as losers for failing to control unemployment and igniting populist anger. But either way, they arguably have driven the national economy and political scene, and hence influenced the world, more than anyone else this year.
So who do you think will - or should - be Time's 2009 cover girl, boy or thing? |
