Well said Telecaster. The idiots have spoiled whatever chance we had at unification and peace. Same as they did after the WTC attacks when the world was behind us. They are fools and have taken the US down the road to ruin. All for their own misbegotten gains. Hopefully one day they will be held to account and America can be a greater country by it.

Although Putin has come out to be the dictator he is and squashed the freedoms once held in his country for a brief time, I fail to see what impact he has made on the world at large. I would think of Gore for bringing the climate changes and won awards for his actions. The very idea that Putin who comes off as a more obscure man who impacts his country and has come out in support of the Opec and bush hating other dictators but man of the year I doubt it. Wasted time and effort to put Putin anywhere on the top 20.

Here are some previous "winners" of Time magazine's "Person of the Year" that are worthy of some attention:

Hitler -1938
Stalin -1939 & 1942
Khrushchev -1957
Nixon -1971 & 1972
Deng Xiaoping -1978 & 1985
Ayatollah Khomeini -1979
George H. W. Bush -1990
Gingrich -1995
Bill Clinton & Kenneth Star -1998
George W. Bush -2000 & 2004

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_the_Year

It's all about treating them like a vanquished enemy. Sure you could say we won the cold war, but USSR actually changed on its own. We had no soldiers on Russian territory, we didn't level their cities with bombs, they decided to change on their own and thought that America was a friend. Instead we gave Gorbachev and Yeltsin only token help and advised economic "shock therapy" for their citizens. From elder Bush to Clinton to younger Bush we took advantage of every possible avenue to humiliate them, to isolate them politially and weaken them economically and it hasn't stopped. It was inevitable that Russia would get back on its feet again and now it is almost impossible for them to see the U.S. as a friend. They have learned the meaning of "It's not personal, it's just business" from us... the hard way.

Of course they omitted these errors. After the 60 Minutes debacle nobody wants to look THAT bad. So what's the answer? Selective amnesia (I mean editing).