CULT MEMBERS STILL NOT DEPROGRAMMED

I'm not quite sure what National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez is proposing in this article about Time's 2008 Person of the Year. She begins by harrumphing that Time has probably already settled on Barack Obama (can you imagine?); she seems to want to suggest that, really, Sarah Palin would be a much better choice, but even she apparently recognizes how silly that is, so she merely wags her finger and informs Time (and Obama!) that Attention Must Be Paid:

...Time shouldn't diss the not insignificant portion of the country that voted for Republican John McCain. And, specifically, they shouldn't ignore the people who were energized by the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to his ticket....

It's still a free country. Media outlets still can do as they please (save for those who choose to hand over their editorial direction to one party or another). But Time would make a mistake if it ignored the Palin phenom this year just because the ticket didn't win in the end.

Obama would be wise to agree.

What's K-Lo proposing? That Time change Person of the Year to a sort of Everybody Gets a Prize Day for prominent public figures who generate a lot of enthusiasm? I can't figure it out?

K-Lo also tells us that it's unclear how Palin would have done in a head-to-head contest with Obama; informs us that Thomas Jefforson Jefferson would have admired Palin; and notes that a "foreign-policy expert" who's on the current National Review cruise "showed up for a panel in a towel (but fully clothed underneath) in an act of solidarity with Palin (referencing the now debunked post-election story that she once appeared to top campaign officials in a towel)." Are other people going to imitate this now in solidarity, sort of like when Manson Family members started sporting swastikas between the eyebrows?

As for Time, its Web site, in fact, presents 25 candidates for Person of the Year, starting with Palin; there's an online vote under way, and Palin currently has the highest point total (possibly because the folksat Free Republic are trying to stuff the ballot box), although Obama is in first place because voters get to vote on a 1-to-10 scale and his vote numbers are higher on average. But this will probably change soon, and Palin will be the clear leader in the online poll. And then her cultists will cry foul when the magazine picks Obama.

Maybe they should just cut to the chase and hold a counter-inaugural at which they declare her their president, or queen, or God's Emissary, or whatever. They could all show up in towels.

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UPDATE, TUESDAY MORNING: In comments, Donna notes that Obama is now far ahead in the Time poll, with Tina Fey(!) #2 based on average vote (though Palin's #2 in total vote). So maybe I've overestimated the size of the Palin Liberation Front.