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Man of the Year?
Wall Street Journal ^ | 12/23/2007 | Garry Kasparov

Posted on 12/24/2007 10:39:35 PM PST by winner3000

Vladimir Putin will now use Time magazine's honor to enhance his own power.

BY GARRY KASPAROV Sunday, December 23, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Ever since President Vladimir Putin took office eight long years ago, the political and media leadership of the West have had a full-time job trying to look on the bright side of Russia's rapid turn from democracy.

The free press has been demolished, elections are canceled and rigged, and then we hear how popular Mr. Putin is. Opposition marches are crushed, and we're told--over and over--how much better off we are today than in the days of the Soviet Union. This week Time magazine named Mr. Putin its 2007 "Person of the Year."

Unfortunately, there is no silver lining to Russia's descent into dictatorship. If anything there is a look of iron to it.

Condoleezza Rice, hardly a Putin critic, said recently that Russia "is not an environment in which you can talk about free and fair elections." A good start, but this comment was not made where one would imagine--perhaps at a press conference insisting that Putin's Russia be removed from the G-7 for making a mockery of democratic practices. No, her remark came as a side note to her very early endorsement of Mr. Putin's handpicked heir to the throne, Dmitry Medvedev.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: 2007review; appeasement; fascism; kasparov; manoftheyear; putin; russia
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To: robomatik

Aw shucks, I’m sure it’s only millions and millions. :-)


21 posted on 12/25/2007 1:36:32 AM PST by rvoitier
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To: winner3000
Time will have blood on its hands.

No matter how many times they explain that the Man of the Year is not meant to be an honor, but simply a recognition for whoever had the greatest effect on the world for good or bad, some people still don't get the message.

22 posted on 12/25/2007 1:36:32 AM PST by ccmay (Too much Law; not enough Order.)
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To: winner3000
I wonder how many people commenting on Time magazine choice of Putin have actually read the article and interview?
I just finished reading it and thought the person writing it was way out of their league. Putin is nobodys fool and this came through loud and clear in the piece. Putin obviously thought the same as he ended the dinner interview before the main course was brought to the table. A signal the writer missed completely. The attendant comments by Hank Kissinger were a good balance to their weak weak interview and article.

I suggest folks read the piece...and read between the lines. It isa revealing piece on Putin. And his picked successor, Mededev(sp?).
23 posted on 12/25/2007 4:06:33 AM PST by Tainan (Talk is cheap. Silence is golden. All I got is brass...lotsa brass.)
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To: winner3000

“Last week, 22-year-old opposition activist Yury Chervochkin died in hospital after several weeks in a coma. He had been beaten nearly to death an hour after making an anxious cellphone call to our offices saying he was being followed by members of the organized-crime task force known as UBOP, which has become the vanguard of the Kremlin’s war on political opposition. A witness saw him clubbed repeatedly by men with baseball bats.”


24 posted on 12/25/2007 5:54:19 AM PST by VRW Conspirator (Decoder rings for sale: Freep mail me)
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To: winner3000

There was a time when being named Time’s Man of the Year actually meant something. Those days are long gone; most of their picks are ludicrous.


25 posted on 12/25/2007 6:00:24 AM PST by ContraryMary (New Jersey -- Superfund cleanup capital of the U.S.A.)
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To: ccmay

So, does Putin actually qualify via their own guidelines?


26 posted on 12/25/2007 6:02:48 AM PST by John W
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To: dayglored
TIME's "Person of the Year"...is about...influence...not...character.

...I'm not defending either TIME or Putin...

That is the problem. TIME has no morals when it decides what "influence" is, yet it retain a clear political agenda. Was GW Bush "Man of the Year" when he liberated millions of people in Iraq, well? TIME hides behind the academic criteria of "influence". Yet everyone will see the man on the cover that serves the agenda.

27 posted on 12/25/2007 6:19:50 AM PST by VRW Conspirator (Decoder rings for sale: Freep mail me)
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To: VRW Conspirator
> TIME has no morals when it decides what "influence" is, yet it retain a clear political agenda. Was GW Bush "Man of the Year" when he liberated millions of people in Iraq, well?

Here are their choices for the last decade:

1997 Andy Grove
1998 Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr
1999 Jeffrey P. Bezos
2000 George W. Bush
2001 Rudolph Giuliani
2002 The Whistleblowers (employees of WorldCom, Enron, FBI)
2003 The American Soldier
2004 George W. Bush
2005 The Good Samaritans (Bono and Bill & Melinda Gates)
2006 You (the Information Age)
2007 Vladimir Putin

I'd say choosing GW Bush TWICE is pretty good. They chose "The American Soldier" for the liberation of Iraq.

What more do you want?

28 posted on 12/25/2007 6:52:32 AM PST by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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To: winner3000

Didn’t time list Rasputin and their Man of the Year in 1916? They have gone from the Mad Monk to the Mad Monkey. I wonder what they are smoking over there to pass over General David Patraeus?!


29 posted on 12/25/2007 6:59:53 AM PST by MIchaelTArchangel
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To: winner3000

In terms of the number of journalists killed there, the only country more dangerous for journalists than Russia is Iraq.


30 posted on 12/25/2007 9:35:36 AM PST by squidly
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To: dayglored

I don’t even know who Grove and Bezos are!


31 posted on 12/25/2007 9:42:00 AM PST by Marie2 (I used to be disgusted. . .now I try to be amused.)
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To: dayglored

TIME is a biased rag.


32 posted on 12/25/2007 5:12:42 PM PST by VRW Conspirator (Decoder rings for sale: Freep mail me)
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To: winner3000

You forgot the “Barf Alert” winner3000.


33 posted on 12/25/2007 5:47:58 PM PST by no dems (FRED THOMPSON: The only Conservative running who can beat Hillary or Obama.)
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To: winner3000
Considering who else they put on, this is hardly surprising...

Photobucket

34 posted on 12/25/2007 5:52:54 PM PST by Xenophon450 (They say it's lonely at the top, then I am as lonely as can be.)
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To: Marie2
> I don’t even know who Grove and Bezos are!

Industrialists of the electronic age.

Andy Grove

Jeff Bezos

35 posted on 12/25/2007 6:19:17 PM PST by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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To: VRW Conspirator
> TIME is a biased rag.

No argument there.

36 posted on 12/25/2007 6:19:57 PM PST by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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To: winner3000

Amen. Congratulations to the Wall Street Journal for printing Garry Kasparov’s column, and congratulations to Garry Kasparov for having the courage to write it. Garry Kasparov should run for president of Russia. Go, Garry, go!


37 posted on 12/28/2007 11:50:54 PM PST by kevinw
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