The man of the hour, sure, but the year?

President Bush is Time's Person of the Year for 2004. I won't go down the route of whether he's "deserving" of the honor since the intention of the award is to recognize who's had the biggest effect on the news, for better or worse; previous honorees include Hitler, Stalin, and Ayatollah Khomeini.

Rather, I think that the choice of President Bush, along with some other recent choices, shows that Time may be losing its way. My understanding of Person of the Year is that it is meant to recognize an individual's extraordinary role in the shaping of the news, which would mean a person who initiates some kind of action or change.

Instead, recent awards simply take the biggest news story of the year and attach a person or group to it, disregarding Person of the Year's intention to recognize an individual and/or someone who initiates the news.

2001 was of course dominated by 9/11, so Person of the Year went to Rudy Giuliani, who reacted admirably but initiated nothing.

2002 was dominated by scandals in the corporate and intelligence communities, so the respective whistleblowers from Enron, WorldCom, and the FBI shared the award. Of course they should be recognized for their courage and I suppose those stories would not have existed without them, but the whistleblower could have just as easily been the person in the next cubicle, so perhaps Person of the Year should have gone to the people who actually perpetrated the scandals?

2003 was dominated by the Iraq war, so Person of the Year went to the "the American soldier," (insert "I support the troops" disclaimer here) which was touching but a massive cop-out. They could have gone with Rumsfeld, Hussein, Chalabi, Blix, Bremer, somebody, anybody, but (insert second, more strenuous "I support the troops" disclaimer here) instead Time gave "Person" of the Year to 2 million people who did nothing to initiate or even shape the news.

2000 and 2004 were dominated by close Presidential elections, so Time gave Person of the Year to the winner of those elections. Blah. One can argue that this year's award was for President Bush's leadership style, etc. but the actual Time article pretty much just talks electoral strategy. If they want to say the 2004 election was pivotal in terms of the way campaigns are ran and politics are thought of, there is certainly an argument to make there. But if that's the case, pick Rove.

The one aspect that runs through these choices is that a potentially disagreeable choice is passed over in favor of an agreeable one, i.e. Giuliani instead of bin Laden, "whistleblowers" instead of Ken Lay, etc. , but I can't say exactly why Time has lost its nerve. Fear of "liberal media" labeling? Caution against being "unpatriotic"? General fear of controversy, blandness being the sales key to general interest magazines? Regardless of what the explanation is, one thing is for sure: "Person of the Year" has become more akin to a "Year in Review" piece, and we know how exciting those are.