Here's the list, but you can ignore the other nine. It's gonna be the pope. It's a lock.
Bashar Assad, President of SyriaNewsmagazines are quite fond of covering religion -- Time has already done two pope covers this year -- and with Francis it's easy, because a lot of liberals and sophisticates are swooning over him. Esquire calls him "the most interesting man in the world" -- hey, if you can allude to a pope with a slogan for an upmarket beer, then the pope is cool. And yet the choice is going to play well in the heartland, where all those other religion stories play quite well.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder
Ted Cruz, Texas Senator
Miley Cyrus, Singer
Pope Francis, Leader of the Catholic Church
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Edward Snowden, N.S.A. Leaker
Edith Windsor, Gay rights activist
I said on Twitter that Francis is the media mancrush of the year. He asked if I thought Francis beat Chris Christie. Oh, hell yeah. Christie's a politics story. Francis is human interest, with across-the-board appeal. He's the winner. Trust me.
*****
UPDATE, WEDNESDAY: Told ya.
14 comments:
Rouhani would be an interesting choice. Miley Cyrus? Over Justin Beaver or Honey Boo Boo? I don't get it. Maybe in David Brooks' world. Guess I'd go with the pope, too, if I were a betting man.
Mussolini. and Hitler were Time Magazine "Man of the Year", 'nuff said?
No fear.
Typo in the headline, Tear instead of Year.
You don't think its going to be a Mandela retrospective?
Not so fast aimai?
1950's Life Magazine
http://ti.me/1bsca6T
@Danp - as lame as it sounds, I get Cyrus. A lot has been written about her - she has been in the culture critic's eye this year in a way that Bieber and Boo-Boo never have.
Pope Francis is certainly the favorite, but Ted Cruz is my dark horse pick. Not even Gingrich orchestrated a government shutdown as a fundraising grift, and he won MotY in 1995. (Of course, JP II was the 1994 pick.) Anyway, the MSM does love an "iconoclast."
Maybe this is the answer to the question Steve M posed in an earlier post: Cruz is going to Mandela's funeral as a final push for a few more MotY votes.
My money's on Mandela.
Liberal swoons.
Man-crush.
Well, he's not on the shortlist. And he wasn't exactly active this year.
Time's newest special edition, coming right after their MOTY:
"Time's Lifetime Achievement Edition: Nelson Mandela."
I think your reasoning is sound -- Time knows religion sells magazines, thus it will be the pope -- but I think there's a small chance Time will make another calculation: It needs to attract younger readers if it is to be sustainable in the years to come. For that reason, they may choose the spy / traitor Ed Snowden. Young people probably think he should get the nod because he warned them that their gmails are being read by Obama.
Traitor? Drink some more Kool-Aid Jack.
No fear.
You don't actually have to be active. Or even alive. Swoons, man-crush.
I think being on the shortlist is pretty much a prerequisite, however.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
My hat is off -- you called it :-)
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