Last month, Time Magazine chose, in what to them was surely a landslide decision, to name George W. Bush as their Person of the Year. To Time, the label does actually make sense, because George Bush, "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the proceeding year." But to many, including nearly half of voting Americans and the parents and family members of soldiers who have died in ill-advised wars in the Middle East, naming Bush as Person of the Year, again, is simply, as one bereaved parent wrote in an angry letter to Time, "rewarding incompetence." Though he may have been the most influential person of 2004, it doesn't make having him named Person of the Year any easier to take. And so he joins the ranks of past winners including Hitler, Stalin, Nixon and himself, who have won Person of the Year with something of a dubious distinction.
The fact that he beat out both Karl Rove and Mel Gibson for the title should speak volumes as to what exactly the magazine is honoring. Karl Rove, often noted for being the evil brains behind the Bush administration, and Mel Gibson, director of the year's most controversial film about savior flagellation, are both choices that would have drawn a fair amount of dispute and disbelief had they been chosen. And Time, in picking Bush as Person of the Year, is quite simply rewarding incompetence, choosing controversy over charity, choosing arrogance over humility. Yes, he was more influential than almost anyone, but George Bush is incompetent, arrogant and reckless, and not someone that I would choose with any kind of pride to name Person of the Year. Their criteria may be "for better or worse," but I would ask them, why can't it be "just for better," just for once? And to those on the panel who chose the winner this year, I offer them eight personalities I feel earned their recognition by doing good and would be therefore better suited to carry the title of Person of the Year for 2004.
Wangari Maathai: Wangari Maathai is the first African woman ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She is an environmentalist who won "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace." Democracy! Peace! She's ahead of George Bush right there. Her influence may not be as widespread as the President's, but she is spreading peace and helping the environment, whereas our Person of the Year has started an illegal, unprovoked war and is trying to drill the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve.
Michael Moore: Michael Moore was actually in consideration for Person of the Year in 2004. Obviously he didn't win, but perhaps he should have. Moore wrote and directed Farenheit 9/11, the highest grossing documentary film ever made. Love him or hate him, millions have seen his films and read his books. His influence on the minds of millions of Americans is profound and indisputable. He may wear a baseball cap out in public, but as far as I know he has never started an illegal war in which over 1300 Americans (and 100,000 Iraqis) have been killed.
Richard Clarke: If Time wanted controversy they could have simply named Richard Clarke as Person of the Year. His influence may not be as far-reaching, but his willingness to speak out about what he witnessed firsthand during his time with the Bush administration should have given him some edge. Because of Clarke, we know that Bush ordered his advisors to search for links between Iraq and the attacks on 9/11 even after he had been told there didn't seem to be any. Because of Clarke, we know that Rumsfeld, when told that Afganistan, not Iraq, was involved in the attacks, said "there aren't any good targets in Afganistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq."
John Kerry: Okay, so he lost what was probably the biggest, most important election in the history of the United States, but he gave millions of liberals and democrats in America a much-needed, albeit brief, shining glimpse of hope. Where the President won the highest number of votes of any candidate in election history, John Kerry won the second highest number of votes. Kudos to him for persisting in spite of the GOP's ruthless campaign tactics, and kudos to him for kicking George Bush's ass in the first debate. That was nice to see.
Kofi Annan: Kofi Annan won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. For some reason I can put more stock in winners of the Nobel Prize, who in the past have included Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, than in Time's Person of the Year, whose past winners have included Hitler, Stalin and Richard Nixon. Kofi Annan has criticized Bush's first strike foreign policy. He called the war on Iraq illegal. He's working to fight the worldwide AIDS epidemic. He's standing strong in spite of the Oil For Food scandal. He has an air of dignity and honesty about him that is lacking in most politics today; he seems trustworthy in a field nearly devoid of those you can trust.
Viktor Yushchenko: Poisoned by his empowered opposition in the recent Ukraine elections, Yushchenko had the second highest level of dioxin ever measured in a human being, and survived. Despite being made seriously ill and permanently disfigured by the poisoning, he went on to win the most votes in the country's second attempt at the election. He gives us hope, that no matter how corrupt, ruthless and deadly a government may become, good can still prevail, if only by coming out alive, to fight another day.
The Red Sox: This year the Sox broke the 86-year nonexistent curse of the Babe, beating the Yankees in a championship series, after being the first team in baseball history to come back from a three-game loss to win a seven game series, and going on to win the World Series. Who saw that coming, really? The perennial underdogs of the American League came out on top and thrilled baseball fans everywhere in one of the most exciting post-seasons in recent memory. Should they not be celebrated? Dude, they won the World Series!
Spongebob Squarepants: He may be only a cartoon, he may be slightly annoying, but I will persist in my belief that Spongebob would make a better Person of the Year than George W. Bush. Who else do you know that lives in a pineapple under the sea? And really, what's cooler than that? Relentlessly optimistic, always coming out on top and he has his own movie. Spongebob is a champion for diversity (his best friend is a starfish), and he's one of us regular working stiffs (he works as a frycook). Yellow, absorbent, and porous is he, and a perfectly acceptable and not at all polarizing Person of the Year he would make.
George W. Bush was inarguably the most influential person of 2004, but in giving someone a title like Person of the Year, perhaps more criteria than simply influence should be used. Perhaps things like altruism, doing good toward all of humanity, charity, philanthrophy, exceptional courage, benevolence and virtue, overcoming insurmountable odds and near-obscene levels of cheery optimism ought to count for more. Surely those who make the world a better place, in whatever way they are able, deserve recognition more than those who simply manage to most shape the world toward their own desires, "for better or worse." With all of the pain and suffering taking place across the globe, the world deserves a Person of the Year who simply makes things better, and in 2004, George W. Bush was not the one.
