Putin is Time Person of the Year
Posted by aloyloy on December 21, 2007
Russia’s enigmatic President AND Prime Minister, modern-day Tsar and overall CEO of the Kremlin Vladimir Putin bests celebrity environmentalist Al Gore and crowd favorite JK Rowling to take this year’s Time Person of the Year recognition.
Photo credit: Platon for Time
The banner story reads:
“… When this intense and brooding KGB agent took over as President of Russia in 2000, he found a country on the verge of becoming a failed state. With dauntless persistence, a sharp vision of what Russia should become and a sense that he embodied the spirit of Mother Russia, Putin has put his country back on the map…“
“… It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership. Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability—stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years…“
So what differentiates Putin from our very own human rights-abuser, GMA? Why does he have a popularity rating of 70% while GMA gets another failing mark in the latest survey? (one of many, many bagsaks/lagpaks on her report card, as the PCIJ reports).
“… In his eight years as President, he has guided his nation through a remarkable transformation…” (Note: Gloria is almost 8 years in power now as well). “… A basket case in the 1990s, Russia’s economy has grown an average of 7% a year for the past five years. The country has paid off a foreign debt that once neared $200 billion. Russia’s rich have gotten richer, often obscenely so. But the poor are doing better too: workers’ salaries have more than doubled since 2003…“
Apparently, when people are comfortable, it’s easier to forget human rights abuses, corruption and authoritarianism… And that’s the missing link to your equation, Ma’am Gloria.
Read Person of the Year 2007.
