Let's Discuss: 'Time' Person of the Year

Who should be Time's person of the year for 2007? The newsweekly will host a panel later today to debate that question, and if past years are any guide, the actual designee-to-be will probably surface in the discussion. So let's consider the possibilities.

First, a couple things to bear in mind:

The person of the year doesn't have to be a person. In previous years, it's been a group of people ("The Whistleblowers," 2004), an abstract figure ("The American Soldier," 2003), a pronoun that's really a concept ("You," 2006) and even a device ("The Computer," 1982).

The person of the year is meant to be the most influential person/group/entity/concept of the year, but the designation is value-neutral -- at least in theory. Past POYs have included Richard Nixon, Ayatollah Khomeini and Adolf Hitler. In practice, Time has seemed to favor feel-good POYs in recent years, possibly because it's easier to sell the issue to advertisers. Hence Rudy Giuliani in 2001 instead of Osama bin Laden.

And now for the contenders:

Pervez Musharraf
This would be something of a throwback choice -- an actual individual rather than a group or concept, a dictator rather than a hero. Picking Musharraf would reflect an emerging consensus that Pakistan -- not Iraq or Iran -- is the make-or-break foreign policy issue of the next few years. On the other hand, even though POY is supposed to be value-neutral, Time editors might worry that bestowing the title on Musharraf so soon after he declared emergency rule might be seen as an endorsement of his power-grab.

Rupert Murdoch
It's been a banner year for Murdoch, with his acquisition of The Wall Street Journal and the launch of Fox Business. And his $580 million purchase of MySpace in 2005 put him right in the middle of the year's biggest media story, social networking. While a media mogul might seem like an insidery choice, past POYs have included Ted Turner and Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

The Dissenters
A politician POY is unlikely this year, since next year's selection will almost certainly be the winner of the presidential election. (The last time a new president wasn't named POY was 1988, when "Endangered Earth" beat out George H.W. Bush; before that, it was 1968, although Nixon was recognized after his 1972 victory.) If it's to be a political cover, I'd guess we'll see some kind of concept package expressing the national mood. Thus: "The Dissenters": the figures who give voice to our exasperation with the Bush Administration. Time likes three-person tableaux, so let's say Stephen Colbert, Keith Olbermann and perhaps Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org, or Arianna Huffington? Or forget "The Dissenters" -- wrap them in a flag and call it "The New Patriots."

I know I'm missing obvious possibilities here -- is there someone who could serve as the face of the sub-prime crisis? -- but I'm out of ideas, and rather than ask all my co-workers to help me look smart, I figured I'd crowdsource this one. If you have suggestions, put 'em in the comments, and if I can I'll bounce them off the panelists.

UPDATE: It's looking like Al Gore might have it wrapped up.

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