Sarah Palin is Time's runner up for Person of the Year

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ticket21-2008dec21,0,6304223.story

Sarah Palin: From running mate to Time's runner-up
In considering her for Person of the Year, the magazine calls the Alaska governor 'a one-woman rescue team for the Republican ticket.'

By Andrew Malcolm
December 21, 2008

Completely ignoring Al Gore because he'd already won the world's other top two prizes -- the Nobel and Oscar -- and pretty well rested on his warming climate laurels this year, Time magazine has chosen Alaska's Republican Gov. Sarah Palin as a runner-up Person of the Year.

Along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson Jr.

Also director Zhang Yimou.

The immense individual honors were created by the aging weekly magazine many years ago to help sell copies in a normally very slow year-end period for news and sales.

At one point in history, this issue actually made news and people talked about it, if there wasn't much else going on.

But being in Time's year-end edition can also be a dangerous distinction. Many of Time's past Persons of the Year have died after receiving the honor -- for instance, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Also President Eisenhower.

:shrug:

I find her as about as influential as toenail fungus, only more annoying.

She was runner up for some beauty pageant. A loss is still a loss. She rescued nothing. The Republicans still lost. Must suck to keep coming in second.

I'm glad to hear people were thinking about him.

Of course Obama should be person of the year, though.

Who was the most popular of the year... not the most influential or anything like that... who jazzed people the most?

Well, Obama, certainly, but you gotta admit, Palin jazzed a lot of people...

me that I was Person of the Year. Shortly after, I let my subscription expire.

I know sometimes notorious is a powerful variable for getting up the Time list, but these two buffoons were BOTH important enough to be in the running?

A hick who gave us reason to suspect she knows nothing, and a big city boy who proved to us that he knows nothing!

The standards are far too low.
GAC

It's not about being a great person, but one who has an impact. Palin has almost single-handedly rent the GOP in two, and is perhaps the most divisive personality in country right now. She is also a remarkably peculiar phenomenon, and McCain's choice of her as VP still has everyone scratching their heads.

May she always be a runner up, never anything more. So the corporate media fell in love with her...and this is the pay off. Nothing more, nothing less.

People who make a real contribution rarely are seen...and their works rarely recognized until long after it's been done. These year-end bullshit lists do nothing more than rehash narratives and yet another view from the beltway and corporate media bubbleworld.