Bush wins TIME's person of the year.

...and rightyfuly so, in my opinion... he was defenatly the most publish and most influencial person this year.

Eagles rather than doves nestle in the Oval Office Christmas tree, pinecones the size of footballs are piled around the fireplace, and the President of the United States is pretty close to lounging in Armchair One. He's wearing a blue pinstripe suit, and his shoes are shined bright enough to shave in. He is loose, lively, framing a point with his hands or extending his arm with his fingers up as though he's throwing a big idea gently across the room.


"I've had a lot going on, so I haven't been in a very reflective mood," says the man who has just replaced half his Cabinet, dispatched 12,000 more troops into battle, arm wrestled lawmakers over an intelligence bill, held his third economic summit and begun to lay the second-term paving stones on which he will walk off into history. Asked about his re-election, he replies, "I think over the Christmas holidays it'll all sink in."

As he says this, George W. Bush is about to set a political record. The first TIME poll since the election has his approval rating at 49%. Gallup has it at 53%, which doesn't sound bad unless you consider that it's the lowest December rating for a re-elected President in Gallup's history. That is not a great concern, however, since he has run his last race, and it is not a surprise to a President who tends to measure his progress by the enemies he makes. "Sometimes you're defined by your critics," he says. "My presidency is one that has drawn some fire, whether it be at home or around the world. Unfortunately, if you're doing big things, most of the time you're never going to be around to see them [to fruition], whether it be cultural change or spreading democracy in parts of the world where people just don't believe it can happen. I understand that. I don't expect many short-term historians to write nice things about me."

Yet even halfway through his presidency, Bush says, he already sees his historic gamble paying off. He watched in satisfaction the inauguration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "I'm not suggesting you're looking at the final chapter in Afghanistan, but the elections were amazing. And if you go back and look at the prognosis about Afghanistan—whether it be the decision [for the U.S. to invade] in the first place, the 'quagmire,' whether or not the people can even vote—it's a remarkable experience." Bush views his decision to press for the transformation of Afghanistan and then Iraq—as opposed to "managing calm in the hopes that there won't be another September 11th, that the Salafist [radical Islamist] movement will somehow wither on the vine, that somehow these killers won't get a weapon of mass destruction"—as the heart of not just his foreign policy but his victory. "The election was about the use of American influence," he says. "I can remember people trying to shift the debate. I wanted the debate to be on a lot of issues, but I also wanted everybody to clearly understand exactly what my thinking was. The debates and all the noise and all the rhetoric were aimed at making very clear the stakes in this election when it comes to foreign policy."

In that respect and throughout the 2004 campaign, Bush was guided by his own definition of a winning formula. "People think during elections, 'What's in it for me?'" says communications director Dan Bartlett, and expanding democracy in Iraq, a place voters were watching smolder on the nightly news, was not high on their list. Yet "every time we'd have a speech and attempt to scale back the liberty section, he would get mad at us," Bartlett says. Sometimes the President would simply take his black Sharpie and write the word freedom between two paragraphs to prompt himself to go into his extended argument for America's efforts to plant the seeds of liberty in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

An ordinary politician tells swing voters what they want to hear; Bush invited them to vote for him because he refused to. Ordinary politicians need to be liked; Bush finds the hostility of his critics reassuring. Challengers run as outsiders, promising change; it's an extraordinary politician who tries this while holding the title Leader of the Free World. Ordinary Presidents have made mistakes and then sought to redeem themselves by admitting them; when Bush was told by some fellow Republicans that his fate depended on confessing his errors, he blew them off.

For candidates, getting elected is the test that counts. Ronald Reagan did it by keeping things vague: It's Morning in America. Bill Clinton did it by keeping things small, running in peaceful times on school uniforms and V chips. Bush ran big and bold and specific all at the same time, rivaling Reagan in breadth of vision and Clinton in tactical ingenuity. He surpassed both men in winning bigger majorities in Congress and the statehouses. And he did it all while conducting an increasingly unpopular war, with an economy on tiptoes and a public conflicted about many issues but most of all about him.

The argument over whether his skill won the race and fueled a realignment of American politics or whether he was the lucky winner of a coin-toss election will last just as long as the debates among historians over whether Dwight Eisenhower had a "hidden-hand strategy" in dealing with political problems, Richard Nixon was at all redeemable and Reagan was an "amiable dunce." Democrats may conclude that they don't need to learn a thing, since 70,000 Ohioans changing their minds would have flipped the outcome and flooded the airwaves with commentary about the flamboyantly failed Bush presidency. It may be that a peculiar chemistry of skills and instincts and circumstances gave Bush his victory in a way no future candidates can copy. But that doesn't mean they won't try.

In the meantime, the lessons Bush draws from his victory are the ones that matter most. The man who in 2000 promised to unite and not divide now sounds as though he is prepared to leave as his second-term legacy the Death of Compromise. "I've got the will of the people at my back," he said at the moment of victory. From here on out, bipartisanship means falling in line: "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals." Whatever spirit of cooperation that survives in his second term may have to be found among his opponents; he has made it clear he's not about to change his mind as he takes on Social Security and the tax code in pursuit of his "ownership society." So unfolds the strange and surprising and high-stakes decade of Bush. 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.

 

Who came in second? Scott Peterson?

 

Janet Jackson.

 

Adolf Hitler was TIME's man of the year in 1933, I believe.

 

heh

 

now I feel warm and fuzzy despite the snow...agreed that he was talked about more than anyone else this year.

 

Good thing I never pay attention to that crap.

And moon_flower was correct, Adolf Hitler was TIME's man of the year but it was in 38. Joseph Stalin won in 39

 

hilarious...really...hilarious.

 

Crap...I got passed over again.

I thought Hitler was man of the year a couple of times, once being in 1940.

Also the Ayatolla Khomeni of Iran recieved the "Honor" in 1979, or was it in 1980. This was during the hostage crisis. The explanation given was the recognition was given to those who made the largest impact, good or evil, during the course of the year.

 

My bad.

 

Hitler was man of the year in 38 when the Munich agreement came about and Stalin was twice.

 

I agree that Bush probably was the most influential person of the year...but that's not necessarily a good thing.

Truth be told, every year since TIME's birth until 1991, the Man of the Year should've been either the US president or Soviet premiere, in terms of influencing the world. Every year since 1991, it should've been the US president. But of course, that would get boring to read.

 

Time made Newt Gingrich 'person of the year' back in the 90s. A year later, many magazines were calling him 'jerk of the year'.

 

I thought Janet Jackson was a better boob than Bush.

 

Here's a nice passage. What a uniter:

In the meantime, the lessons Bush draws from his victory are the ones that matter most. The man who in 2000 promised to unite and not divide now sounds as though he is prepared to leave as his second-term legacy the Death of Compromise. "I've got the will of the people at my back," he said at the moment of victory. From here on out, bipartisanship means falling in line: "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals."

 

Do you know who else made person of the year?

(Hint: He was an early 20th century German politician and house painter.)

That's right

(EDIT: *looks back earlier in the thread*, Fuck, beaten!)

 

A few more Time winners:

1938 Adolf Hitler
1942 Joseph Stalin
1957 Nikita Krushchev
1965 General William Westmoreland
1971 Richard Milhous Nixon
1972 Nixon and Kissinger
1974 King Faisal
1979 Ayatullah Khomeini
1983 Ronald Reagan & Yuri Andropov
1985 Deng Xiaoping
1990 George Bush
1995 Newt Gingrich
1998 Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr
2000 George W. Bush

 

Hmmmmm.....Hitler, Stalin, Ayatolla Khomeni, then George Dubya'? Yup, I can definitely see where he fits in with them. Only the most DISGRACEFUL of leaders get this "honor".

 

Clinton was a great leader aside from over-sensationalized affair with his fat jewish secretary.

 

and the bombing of thousands of innocent civilians...but other than that he was a GREAT leader (sarcasm)...

Peace and Love,
Dan