Russia’s president beats out Al Gore, J.K. Rowling, other big names for title.
Eighteen years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev was named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year for leading the political revolution that tore down the Iron Curtain and broke apart the Soviet Union. This year, Vladimir Putin, the man who restored Russia to a leading role on the world stage, has taken that title.The highly anticipated announcement was made live on Wednesday on TODAY by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel. He said that TIME’s readers had chosen author J.K. Rowling first in an online poll.
But Putin won the title for taking Russia from chaos to a position of importance in the world today. Being TIME’s Person of the Year is not necessarily an honor, in Putin’s case.
Last year, the Person of the Year was “You,” the millions of people who have made the Internet a vital force of communication and culture.
Stengel said that Gore finished second in the opinion of the editors, with Rowling third, Hu Jintao fourth and Petraeus fifth. It was the first time the magazine ranked the runners-up.
Re: Russian President named TIME’s Person of the Year 2007
Voters online chose Rowling first, Gore second, Ahmadinejad third, Rice fourth, Jobs fifth, Petraeus sixth and Putin a distant seventh.But the Person of the Year isn’t a popularity contest. “We all grew up with Russia as this great superpower and rival to the U.S.,” said Stengel. “But in the ’90s, Russia was a basket case.”
Putin changed that, restoring political order — at the cost of civil liberties, his critics say — and world influence. With vast oil wealth and a 2,000-mile border with China, Stengel said, “Russia is really critical to the future of the 21st century.”
Re: Russian President named TIME’s Person of the Year 2007
He was asked by many Russians to keep his kursi because of country's interests but he chose not too. According to him, its the right time, his term is over and he should let others take control.
Re: Russian President named TIME’s Person of the Year 2007
He was asked by many Russians to keep his kursi because of country's interests but he chose not too. According to him, its the right time, his term is over and he should let others take control.
Who says he is leaving? He is likely to become PM unlike the last guy in China who totally left. Though, the loyalist president could grow his own wings but lets keep our fingers crossed.
Re: Russian President named TIME’s Person of the Year 2007
If you look at the picture carefully, he is made out to look like a cold-hearted devil.
Look at his each side, you’ll notice little horns.
-Polls have shown that talking tough about Russia standing up to foreigners strikes a chord with millions of Russians who yearn for the Soviet Union’s once mighty superpower status.
-Putin, 55, whose party recently won a big victory in parliamentary elections, is riding high on an oil-fuelled economic boom and soaring popularity from a no-nonsense approach that has restored national pride with a big military build-up and verbal attacks on the West reminiscent of the Cold War.
Re: Russian President named TIME’s Person of the Year 2007
If you look at the picture carefully, he is made out to look like a cold-hearted devil.
Look at his each side, you'll notice little horns.
People say that every year if the M hits the persons head, it's been done to Clinton, A Pope, and even Bono of U2.
Putin, a KGB agent who will use any means to make Russia a main player on the world stage has reorganized the government so he can remain in control and uses aggressive and dangerous tactics to force his vision onto others, and all of this is easily done as Russia cashes in with soaring energy profits of companies once private now taken over by the state. U.S. Republicans mocked (and still do) Jimmy Carter but if his alternative energy polices had been followed out instead of being dismantled by the Reagan White House the U.S. wouldn't be held hostage by the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia today.
