2008 Man Of The Year

President-elect Barack Obama has been named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2008 BCE. Kudos to Mr. Obama! He certainly deserves to be honored or acknowledged as the single most influential person in the world during 2008. From what I can see, only a fool would think otherwise.

According to Time Magazine – in one of the craziest elections in American history, he overcame a lack of experience, a funny name, two candidates who are political institutions and the racial divide to become the 44th President of the United States.

Time decides who – or what on occasion – to name as Person of the Year based on who they feel most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year. So Person of the Year is an acknowledgment of power and/or influence as opposed to a ringing endorsement of any person’s qualities of character, wisdom or action.

Below is the complete list of Time’s Persons of the Year since the award’s inception in 1927. This is the powerful, though not nearly always illustrious company whose ranks Obama has now joined.

1927 Charles Augustus Lindbergh
1928 Walter P. Chrysler
1929 Owen D. Young
1930 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
1931 Pierre Laval
1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1933 Hugh Samuel Johnson
1934 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1935 Haile Selassie
1936 Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson
1937 Generalissimo & Mme Chiang Kai-Shek
1938 Adolf Hitler
1939 Joseph Stalin
1940 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
1941 Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1942 Joseph Stalin
1943 George Catlett Marshall
1944 Dwight David Eisenhower
1945 Harry Truman
1946 James F. Byrnes
1947 George Catlett Marshall
1948 Harry Truman
1949 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
1950 American Fighting-Man
1951 Mohammed Mossadegh
1952 Elizabeth II
1953 Konrad Adenauer
1954 John Foster Dulles
1955 Harlow Herbert Curtice
1956 Hungarian Freedom Fighter
1957 Nikita Krushchev
1958 Charles De Gaulle
1959 Dwight David Eisenhower
1960 U.S. Scientists
1961 John Fitzgerald Kennedy
1962 Pope John XXIII
1963 Martin Luther King Jr.
1964 Lyndon B. Johnson
1965 General William Childs Westmoreland
1966 Twenty-Five and Under
1967 Lyndon B. Johnson
1968 Astronauts Anders, Borman and Lovell
1969 The Middle Americans
1970 Willy Brandt
1971 Richard Milhous Nixon
1972 Nixon and Kissinger
1973 John J. Sirica
1974 King Faisal
1975 American Women
1976 Jimmy Carter
1977 Anwar Sadat
1978 Teng Hsiao-P’ing
1979 Ayatullah Khomeini
1980 Ronald Reagan
1981 Lech Walesa
1982 The Computer
1983 Ronald Reagan & Yuri Andropov
1984 Peter Ueberroth
1985 Deng Xiaoping
1986 Corazon Aquino
1987 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
1988 Endangered Earth
1989 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
1990 The Two George Bushes
1991 Ted Turner
1992 Bill Clinton
1993 The Peacemakers
1994 Pope John Paul II
1995 Newt Gingrich
1996 Dr. David Ho
1997 Andy Grove
1998 Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr
1999 Jeff Bezos
2000 George W. Bush
2001 Rudolph Giuliani
2002 The Whistleblowers
2003 The American Soldier
2004 George W. Bush
2005 Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, & Bono
2006 You
2007 Vladimir Putin

So I must counsel my Liberal readers not to gloat too much over Obama being added to what is as much a rogues gallery as a hall of fame. I must also counsel my Conservative readers not to mourn or vent too much over Obama being acknowledged as the singularly most influential person of 2008.

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5 Responses to “2008 Man Of The Year”

  1. Moriah Says:

    Loved seeing this list – thanks!

  2. jonolan Says:

    No problem – I’m glad you enjoyed it.

    I was interested in it myself and, as you well know that tends to lead to my posting on things.

    😉

  3. Moriah Says:

    Never would have guessed your postings correlated to your interests, lol. 😉

  4. jonolan Says:

    Ha Ha.

    I was referring to the rambling set of topics that end up on Reflections From Murky Pond. Some bloggers keep to a very tight set of topics; I don’t, hence the eclectic ramblings… tag line.

    😛

  5. Moriah Says:

    Some bloggers keep to a very tight set of topics?! 😉 Wow…will wonders never cease! The things I learn every day.

    *grin*

    So your disclaimer warrants your ramblings, eh? Nice. The particular blog that I most frequently “ramble” on has another such disclaimer. “Unedited ramblings.” I like to think this means I’m not held accountable for the mixed and crazy postings…it’s a post-modern blog, with all the freedoms I like to invoke as such. Muhahahaha. My other blogs are more organized and structured.

    Anyway, just giving you a hard time. =) I appreciate the variation of posts greatly. Keeps things fresh.

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