Barone On Putin as POTY

"Yes, he's a consequential figure, who has just nominated a successor who looks like his pawn (at least for now; for a contrary view, see this speculation). But Russia ain't what it was when Time saw Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov as a dynamic duo. And who are Time's runners-up? Al Gore, who exaggerated the IPCC climate forecast by a factor of 20 to say that New York and London would be flooded by global warming (they weren't in the 13th century, when the weather was a lot warmer than it is now). J. K. Rowling, who has made millions writing books that children and adults love to read; all power to her, but she's not exerting the kind of influence over human affairs that Hitler did in 1938 and Stalin did in 1939. Or Hu Jintao, who is presiding over a system whose initiation, in 1978, was rightly honored by Time as a turning point in history. I have on my bookshelves somewhere (actually, it's not there, because I've just moved and haven't reshelved my books) a book by a China scholar entitled 1587: A Year of No Significance. I bought it because of the title and haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Hu Jintao is, so far as I can tell, like that book, of no significance. David Petraeus, No. 4 on Time's list, has made a much greater—a huger—difference. But Time doesn't want to acknowledge that, because to do so would be to admit that George W. Bush is not an ignorant tyrant and that the United States is not on the losing side of history. Better to elevate Vladimir Putin to a significance he does not deserve. Shame."

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