I'm not much of a fan of the Time Magazine Person of the Year fuss. They usually do a decent job of picking someone significant enough to qualify, but often miss the best choices. Of course, sometimes they completely misfire, such as in 1982 when they selected the computer, or in 1988 when they chose "Endangered Earth". Of late, they have tended to select choices that within a few years makes readers say, "Who?" Those examples came in 1996 (David Ho), 1997 (Andy Grove), 1999 (Jeffrey Bezos), and one complete suck-up choice in 1991 (Ted Turner).

This year, they have made their second complete suck-up choice ... everyone:

The "Great Man" theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.

To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Eh. So this is the year for the great huddled masses? Wouldn't that have been 1989, when the momentum of freedom and liberty felled an Evil Empire and tore down a wall in Berlin? Instead, Time selected Mikhail Gorbachev, and also named him its Man of the Decade for managing to take the Soviet Union into oblivion. The fact that they selected him over the two men responsible for forcing him into that position shows the problems Time has always had in seeing the long view of history.

At least, however, they made a decision and selected someone. The entire point of a Person of the Year is to acknowledge that some people play larger roles in history. Naming all of us may make us feel good about our anonymity, but in the end it's either pandering to millions of readers or a refusal to take a stand on anyone. Choosing everyone is an abdication on the entire purpose of the project.

Even Salon did better than that -- but not by much. In a year of so much turmoil and such electoral drama, they selected S. R. Sidarth, the opposition researcher for James Webb that got himself notoriety by being the target of George Allen's weird "macaca" moment. It's a silly selection by an unserious publication, perhaps much more demonstrative of Salon than it could possibly be of 2006.

Who would I have selected? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with second place going to Kim Jong-Il. It's been that kind of year. (via Hot Air)

UPDATE: I clicked on the Time link to re-read the article and got a Chrysler ad. Chrysler obviously missed the editorial meeting -- it's ad text starts, "You may not be Time's Person of the Year ..." But I am!

UPDATE II: Danny at Beltway Blogroll has a more sanguine approach to sharing 1/6 billionth of the honor. Gaius says his readers are better looking than mine -- I wouldn't take that, if I were you. Jeralynn is also unimpressed, and has a rational selection for the honor. I don't agree with her, but they at least qualify as a significant movers this year, unlike the eventual (or even current) Trivial Pursuit answer Sidarth.

UPDATE III and BUMP: Bill Buetler at Blog PI predicted this outcome in October. So maybe Bill should have been the Person of the Year? Oh, wait ... he is! Tom Maguire is reveling in his newfound status, and is giving his readers a blow-by-blow account of his first day as POTY ... which has something related to the potty, actually.

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