http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2004/story.html


George W. Bush

 
For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year 
 
By NANCY GIBBS and JOHN F. DICKERSON 
 

 

Posted Sunday, December 19, 2004
Eagles rather than doves nestle in the Oval Office Christmas tree, pinecones the size of footballs are piled around the fireplace, and the President of the United States is pretty close to lounging in Armchair One. He's wearing a blue pinstripe suit, and his shoes are shined bright enough to shave in. He is loose, lively, framing a point with his hands or extending his arm with his fingers up as though he's throwing a big idea gently across the room.

"I've had a lot going on, so I haven't been in a very reflective mood," says the man who has just replaced half his Cabinet, dispatched 12,000 more troops into battle, arm wrestled lawmakers over an intelligence bill, held his third economic summit and begun to lay the second-term paving stones on which he will walk off into history. Asked about his re-election, he replies, "I think over the Christmas holidays it'll all sink in."

As he says this, George W. Bush is about to set a political record. The first TIME poll since the election has his approval rating at 49%. Gallup has it at 53%, which doesn't sound bad unless you consider that it's the lowest December rating for a re-elected President in Gallup's history. That is not a great concern, however, since he has run his last race, and it is not a surprise to a President who tends to measure his progress by the enemies he makes. "Sometimes you're defined by your critics," he says. "My presidency is one that has drawn some fire, whether it be at home or around the world. Unfortunately, if you're doing big things, most of the time you're never going to be around to see them [to fruition], whether it be cultural change or spreading democracy in parts of the world where people just don't believe it can happen. I understand that. I don't expect many short-term historians to write nice things about me."

Yet even halfway through his presidency, Bush says, he already sees his historic gamble paying off. He watched in satisfaction the inauguration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "I'm not suggesting you're looking at the final chapter in Afghanistan, but the elections were amazing. And if you go back and look at the prognosis about Afghanistan—whether it be the decision [for the U.S. to invade] in the first place, the 'quagmire,' whether or not the people can even vote—it's a remarkable experience." Bush views his decision to press for the transformation of Afghanistan and then Iraq—as opposed to "managing calm in the hopes that there won't be another September 11th, that the Salafist [radical Islamist] movement will somehow wither on the vine, that somehow these killers won't get a weapon of mass destruction"—as the heart of not just his foreign policy but his victory. "The election was about the use of American influence," he says. "I can remember people trying to shift the debate. I wanted the debate to be on a lot of issues, but I also wanted everybody to clearly understand exactly what my thinking was. The debates and all the noise and all the rhetoric were aimed at making very clear the stakes in this election when it comes to foreign policy."

In that respect and throughout the 2004 campaign, Bush was guided by his own definition of a winning formula. "People think during elections, 'What's in it for me?'" says communications director Dan Bartlett, and expanding democracy in Iraq, a place voters were watching smolder on the nightly news, was not high on their list. Yet "every time we'd have a speech and attempt to scale back the liberty section, he would get mad at us," Bartlett says. Sometimes the President would simply take his black Sharpie and write the word freedom between two paragraphs to prompt himself to go into his extended argument for America's efforts to plant the seeds of liberty in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

An ordinary politician tells swing voters what they want to hear; Bush invited them to vote for him because he refused to. Ordinary politicians need to be liked; Bush finds the hostility of his critics reassuring. Challengers run as outsiders, promising change; it's an extraordinary politician who tries this while holding the title Leader of the Free World. Ordinary Presidents have made mistakes and then sought to redeem themselves by admitting them; when Bush was told by some fellow Republicans that his fate depended on confessing his errors, he blew them off.

For candidates, getting elected is the test that counts. Ronald Reagan did it by keeping things vague: It's Morning in America. Bill Clinton did it by keeping things small, running in peaceful times on school uniforms and V chips. Bush ran big and bold and specific all at the same time, rivaling Reagan in breadth of vision and Clinton in tactical ingenuity. He surpassed both men in winning bigger majorities in Congress and the statehouses. And he did it all while conducting an increasingly unpopular war, with an economy on tiptoes and a public conflicted about many issues but most of all about him.

The argument over whether his skill won the race and fueled a realignment of American politics or whether he was the lucky winner of a coin-toss election will last just as long as the debates among historians over whether Dwight Eisenhower had a "hidden-hand strategy" in dealing with political problems, Richard Nixon was at all redeemable and Reagan was an "amiable dunce." Democrats may conclude that they don't need to learn a thing, since 70,000 Ohioans changing their minds would have flipped the outcome and flooded the airwaves with commentary about the flamboyantly failed Bush presidency. It may be that a peculiar chemistry of skills and instincts and circumstances gave Bush his victory in a way no future candidates can copy. But that doesn't mean they won't try.

In the meantime, the lessons Bush draws from his victory are the ones that matter most. The man who in 2000 promised to unite and not divide now sounds as though he is prepared to leave as his second-term legacy the Death of Compromise. "I've got the will of the people at my back," he said at the moment of victory. From here on out, bipartisanship means falling in line: "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals." Whatever spirit of cooperation that survives in his second term may have to be found among his opponents; he has made it clear he's not about to change his mind as he takes on Social Security and the tax code in pursuit of his "ownership society." So unfolds the strange and surprising and high-stakes decade of Bush.

For sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes—and ours—on his faith in the power of leadership, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year.

:D

Bloody conservatives.

Bah.

Time == pretty damned biased to the left.

I no longer like Time magazine.  :P

[quote author=quasi-modo link=topic=9969.msg93116#msg93116 date=1103604344]
Time == pretty damned biased to the left.
[/quote]

Who cares?  They claimed Goerge Bush as their person of the year.  I wonder who paid them.  ^^;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_the_Year

Read that.

[quote author=dxoigmn link=topic=9969.msg93121#msg93121 date=1103615483]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_the_Year

Read that.
[/quote] and? I knew this already, infact I heard that Osama was one of the choices the other year.

Hmm, reading that article and learning a bit more about Time's "Person of the Year" it doesn't surprise me that Bush was chosen.

Not to reiterate the liberal notion that Bush is like Hitler, but Hitler was Time's man of the year TWICE.

The Bush is Hitler thing is soooo dumb.

Anyways, owned.

Shouldn't it be more like Hussein is Hitler?  How is Bush like Hitler?  I've never heard that comparrison

Because Hitler wanted to conquer.

And Saddam Didn't? He invaded Kuwait and Iran.

Shhhhh.... Don't start listing facts about Saddam.  Someone's head might explode.  He was a good man.  Well, at least ever since Bush got into office.  When Clinton was president, Saddam was a bad bad man.

Forgive if I am wrong, but Hitler's notion was to conquer the world and expand Germany, while Saddam's intentions were otherwise.

AMERICAAAAA, fuck yeaaaaa!

Hitler tried to kill some of his own ppl, as did Saddam.  Bush tried & succeeded @ stopping Saddam from killing anyone ever again

[quote author=Mephisto link=topic=9969.msg93230#msg93230 date=1103739532]
Forgive if I am wrong, but Hitler's notion was to conquer the world and expand Germany, while Saddam's intentions were otherwise.
[/quote]

What about expanding american capitalism (conquering communism)?

[quote author=Adron link=topic=9969.msg93239#msg93239 date=1103743278]
[quote author=Mephisto link=topic=9969.msg93230#msg93230 date=1103739532]
Forgive if I am wrong, but Hitler's notion was to conquer the world and expand Germany, while Saddam's intentions were otherwise.
[/quote]

What about expanding american capitalism (conquering communism)?
[/quote] Like freemarket is oppression?

[quote author=Mephisto link=topic=9969.msg93182#msg93182 date=1103683434]
Because Hitler wanted to conquer.
[/quote]

What exactly does Bush want to conquer? Well, I mean, apart from terrorist spawning grounds. I highly doubt Hitler was opressing Jews/others in order to stop terrorism.

[quote author=Mephisto link=topic=9969.msg93230#msg93230 date=1103739532]
Forgive if I am wrong, but Hitler's notion was to conquer the world and expand Germany, while Saddam's intentions were otherwise.
[/quote]

What were Saddam's motives for taking Kuwait then?

[quote author=Adron link=topic=9969.msg93318#msg93318 date=1103820746]
[quote author=hismajesty[yL] link=topic=9969.msg93242#msg93242 date=1103744767]
What exactly does Bush want to conquer? Well, I mean, apart from terrorist spawning grounds. I highly doubt Hitler was opressing Jews/others in order to stop terrorism.
[/quote]

Wasn't that the way jews were made out; terrorists, saboteurs, thieves?
[/quote]

Please.  Tell me how many Jews took credit for blowing up German citizens?  How many Jews flew planes into German buildings and then sat back and laughed about a job well done?

Bush didn't have people fly planes into the World Trade Center.  Bush didn't make up an enemy.  Those fucking assholes came over here and flew planes into our buildings.  This isn't some perceived antagonism created by the government.  These people hate us and want us dead, they say so very clearly. 

I would really love for you to explain just how in the hell the Jews are like Islamic fundamentalists and just how Bush is like Hitler.  If there is any grounds for a legitimate comparision here, I'd really love to hear it.

[quote author=Adron link=topic=9969.msg93318#msg93318 date=1103820746]
[quote author=hismajesty[yL] link=topic=9969.msg93242#msg93242 date=1103744767]
What exactly does Bush want to conquer? Well, I mean, apart from terrorist spawning grounds. I highly doubt Hitler was opressing Jews/others in order to stop terrorism.
[/quote]

Wasn't that the way jews were made out; terrorists, saboteurs, thieves?
[/quote]

Jews have been scapegoats for hundreds of years, that's not an excuse. It'd be like us killing all the blacks because they're made out to be a more likely criminal.

As far as I know, there was never a Jewish conspiracy to undermine Germany.  In fact, if I remember correctly, some Jews tried to enlist in the German military to help fight for their country in World War 2.  They of course were denied and shipped off to die.

I think that the desire has been made clear and obvious on the part of these terrorists that they do wish our country harm.  The claims made by these terrorists that their war is against our government and not its citzens is an obvious lie.  You don't fly planes into civilian targets if you wish to attack a government.  Their claims are nothing more than attempts to undermine our government.  These people want us dead and there is no negotiating with them.  You can't sit down at a negotiating table with these savages.  They don't care about anything other than their perceived injustices and their revenge.

The war is against Christians.

[quote author=hismajesty[yL] link=topic=9969.msg93329#msg93329 date=1103827683]
The war is against Christians.
[/quote]

I disagree on that one.  They certainly don't like Christians.  But they don't like Jews either.  And you can't tell me that no atheists were killed in the World Trade Center attacks.  They hate Western culture.  They see it as a threat to their stranglehold on their own people.

[quote author=MyndFyre link=topic=9969.msg93139#msg93139 date=1103651095]
Not to reiterate the liberal notion that Bush is like Hitler, but Hitler was Time's man of the year TWICE.
[/quote]

So was Bill Clinton.