Thanks for the kind wish, Bruiser, but it is already well-taken-care of! :D

The PErson of the Year is selected on the basis of how much impact the electee has had on the world. One year it was the personal computer, back when typewriters were beginning to panic. Obama has made some important difgferences. For one thing he has forced the right wing reactivists to pull in their horns. For another he has salvaged the economy, if slowly, from a precipitate collapse. For a third he has moved the cause of rational health care forward in this country. For a fourth he has articulated a rational vision of economics being driven by the middle class, not the upper class, which is brilliant in its simplicity and (IMHO) accuracy and which has defanged the insanity of the plutocratic model of economics. For a fifth he has continually demonstrated a sense of compassion and intelligent leadership, and generally steered things in the right direction despite the best efforts of our less-than-sane minority to prevent it. For a sixth he has enhanced the repute of the country internationally, by actual survey. For a seventh he has backed down the rabid jingoistic militarism of the John Wayne crowd and re-aligned our national purposes away from invasion and militant world policing, while balancing this with a firmness in policy.

So overall, I think he has done as well as any ordinary man could do in the position, and has improved things. I would like to see an end to the combat posture in Afghanistan, but for the sake of those who live there, not at the cost of turning the whole region back over to the psychos in the Taliban. And I would dearly love to see a national Board of Enquiry investigate the gradual corrosion of constitutional freedoms in the United States and see steps taken to rectify them by restoring freedoms of speech, assembly, and the right to un-invaded privacy in homes and personal communications.

A