Surprise, surprise, Time magazine has named President-elect Barack Obama as its ‘Person of the Year.’  I read Time’s reasons for selecting BO and the most powerful thing they said was simple praise to the writer of Obama’s ‘Person of the Year’ article:

David Von Drehle’s masterly story on our Person of the Year not only sketches out what’s on Obama’s mind but also reveals new details about how and when he realized that his first 100 days had to start on Nov. 5, the day after voters elected him to become the 44th President of the United States and the first African American to hold the office.

Obama is a good choice. He changed politics and historically became our nation’s first half African-American president.

The runner-ups included treasury secretary Henry Paulson, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and Beijing Olympic art director Zhang Yimou.

‘People That Mattered’ included Ingrid Betancourt, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Robert Downey Jr., Tina Fey, Robert Fuld Jr., Robert Gates, Somaly Mam, John McCain, Stephenie Meyer, Robert Mugabe, Michael Phelps, Mikheil Saakashvili, the Somali Pirates, Dana Torres, Craig Venter, and Rick Warren.

Barack joins an esteemed list of winners of the magazine’s yearly honor that includes Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ted Turner and Vladimir Putin.