Time magazine wimps out

Time Magazine wimped out with its choice of "Person of the Year": You. The explanation:

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Why didn't Time Magazine choose the obvious candidate, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for "Person of the Year"? Here is one answer:

And Stengel said if the magazine had decided to go with an individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the likely choice. "It just felt to me a little off selecting him," Stengel said.

Ahmadinejad is only masterminding the American retreat from the Middle East, pushing Iran into the nuclear club as fast as he can, establishing himself as the world leader of the Holocaust-denial movement, and threatening Israel with annihilation on a weekly basis. Saudi Arabia is already threatening a regional sectarian and/or atomic war to prevent the coming Ahmadinejad hegemony.

In short, Ahmadinejad is bestriding the world like a titan. But making him "Person of the Year" might call attention to the fact that somebody, somewhere -- and maybe someone from the United States -- might actually have to do something to stop him someday. The mainstream media can't risk that happening!