Who is Time Magazine’s "Person Of The Year" for 2006?

Me.

Yes, me.

AND IT"S ABOUT TIME THEY RECOGNIZED ME!!!

And you.

Yes, you.  You’re even on the cover!  Go to the newstand and see for yourself!!

Clearly, a cheap PR ploy designed to get people to buy the issue.

NOTE:  This is the third time I’ve won Time’s "Person of the Year" Award.  I also won in 1966 ("Twenty-Five and Unders") and in 1969 ("Middle Americans").  Still, my sister has won four times now — the same three as me, plus another time in 1975 (when "American Woman" won).

UPDATE:  Blogosphere reactions include "pathetic", "condescending and patronizing", and "humble honored"

And this blogger predicted this selection way back in October.

But the Comment Of The Year Regarding Person Of The Year goes to this guy:

Seriously. Congratulations to Time for actually thinking of something even stupider than Rudy Giuliani in 2001.

…Adding in: I’d like to apologize in advance for this, because I’m sure it will offend some. But Person of the Year isn’t the Special fucking Olympics. The entire point of the exercise is that everyone doesn’t get a medal for participating. The purpose of the issue is to address the person or persons who, for bad or worse, most affected world events of that year. So they picked… everyone? Well of course everyone affected world events the most, fuckwits.

I mentioned Giuliani because I think most people who used to care about this would agree that 2001 was the year that without any argument Time blatantly copped out on the entire point of the issue. Osama bin Laden was clearly the person who, like Hitler in 1933, affected world events the most that year. But bin Laden wouldn’t sell magazines and American readers would be too stupid to realize it’s not an award. So now, five years later, Time’s given in and decided that Person of the Year is, officially, an award. Congratulations, Time Magazine is now Everybody Gets a Trophy Day.

Wake me when we have journalism in America again.