Not so for 2022. Ukrainian president Volodmyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian spirit that he has fostered and supported received the honour.
Not always an honour, though – it is the newsmaker, for good or bad, that Time considers. How else to explain another president, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, having been named a cover boy? Time seems to like presidents, especially American ones. In the last quarter century Clinton, Dubya (twice!), Obama, also twice, the second recognition followed by a Nobel Peace Prize. (How Obama made the world a more peaceful place was hard to fathom. The Nobel committee must have considered words, rather than actions.) Then Trump followed by Biden/Harris. Very USA-centric choices.
When the Time recognition was still sexist, called ‘man of the year’, other presidents garnered attention. JFK and RMN. The second, Nixon, was so named two years straight. Kennedy garnered the laurels after defeating Nixon in an election that, much like George W. Bush’s first win (over Al Gore), relied on chicanery in one state. Not Florida. The mighty and corrupt Democratic machine in Chicago delivered Illinois’ electoral college votes to Kennedy and thus the White House.
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