Hmmm...Time Magazine considering Bin Laden as man of the year.

[I.R Joey]

I just saw a story about this, and those who say that he should get the spot have a pretty good point. He did infact have the greatest impact on national and international events this year. They argue that this is not to praise him or to congradulate him, but to show what evil is capable of. I don't know who remembers this article but Time in Dec. 1999 included Hitler as one of their most influential people of the century. It was very interesting as they wrote an article about which is more influential Good or Evil, and has greater power to determine the coarse of history. I enjoyed reading it, and it really made me think. Considering that my own beliefs stem from the fact that everything is in The good Lord's hands I really can't argue that evil overcomes good, but it is a startling concept.

[Failure]

Influential is one thing, I kinda consider something like Man of the Year as positive recognition. It seems like they're rewarding Bin Laden for his behavior. So all you have to do to win MotY is to do some catastrophic damage? Giving bin laden recognition like that would be a travesty and a big kick in the face to everyone who's done anything positive and not gotten half the recognition a nut like bin laden gets. This is just media's obsession with sensationalism at its worst. I wonder if Time would have the brass to go through with it, they would get skewered inside out by the American public.

[Karkull]

Loathe him or hate him, Osama Bin Laden has made more news this year than the likes of Gary Condit, Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt, Tim Burton, the cast of Friends, the sharks off Florida's coast, killer cell phones, Survivor II or III, Shrek, or George W. Bush. Sounds like Man of the Year material to me.

[The Mad Hatter]

That's true, he's been more influential than anyone has this year.

And their "Man of the year" isn't always positive... I remember a while back they named either Bush Sr. or Clinton "men of the year," in light of personality extremes.

Wow, that wasn't helpful at all, was it?

[The Dork Knight]

Yup folks... It the end of the world.

[Nightflower]

Wow.....great message they send there, eh, folks? If I do something horrific and despicable as to get the bad-news-loving media to give tons of coverage to me, such as smashing buildings or biological warfare, then I, too, can be man of the year!


Well, actually I can't, but for the sake of the argument, let's pretend I can.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

I'm pretty sure Adolf Hitler made Man of the Year on Time magazine in 1939.

[The Dork Knight]

Originally posted by Leaping Larry Jojo
I'm pretty sure Adolf Hitler made Man of the Year on Time magazine in 1939.

Actually it was Joseph Stallin. Hitler was Man of the Year in 1938.

[Karkull]

Originally posted by Nightflower
Wow.....great message they send there, eh, folks? If I do something horrific and despicable as to get the bad-news-loving media to give tons of coverage to me, such as smashing buildings or biological warfare, then I, too, can be man of the year!

Yup. Ain't the media grand?

[Jedi Knight]

Taken straight from the Time website:


For each of the last 70 years, TIME has presented a Man of the Year--the single person (man, woman, or even idea) who, for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year.

Based on that description, it's gotta be Osama.

[Maxie Zeus]

Main precedent is probably 1979 (or 1980) when they made the Ayatollah Khomeini "Man of the Year."

[RockItShipper]

And they don't know that it's Condit's missing intern who masterminded the whole thing. :p